High alert over plague in Madagascar
Epidemic kills 94 on secluded island
GENEVA: A plague epidemic has killed 94 people on the island of Madagascar and could spread further, the World Health Organisation ( WHO) has warned.
The WHO’s Africa emergencies director Ibrahima Soce Fall said yesterday the organisation was racing to stop both the Madagascar plague and an outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg virus in Uganda, which it was confident it could contain.
Plague is endemic in Madagascar, but the outbreak that has caused 1 153 suspected cases since August is worrying because it started earlier than usual, has hit towns rather than rural areas, and is mainly causing pneumonic plague, the most deadly form of the disease.
The outbreak already looks big when compared to the 3 248 cases and 584 deaths reported worldwide from 2010 to 2015.
Fall said the risk remained high, although the international risk was low.
The WHO has delivered antibiotics to Madagascar to treat up to 5 000 patients and as a prophylactic dose for up to 100 000 people who might be at risk, as well as 150 000 sets of personal protective equipment.
About 2 000 healthworkers are tracing people who have been in contact with plague sufferers.
“I’m confident that with the strong team we have on the ground, combined with more partners coming and health workers, we will be able very quickly to reverse the trend,” Fall said.
The Red Cross has introduced the same “safe and dignified” burial methods used in west Africa during the 20142016 Ebola epidemic, which are also being followed by the WHO and local government authorities to limit the spread of the plague.
Hospitals are on high alert and are implementing preventative measures, medical staff said. “We are limiting the number of visitors, and stipulating that all the health professionals wear a mask when they meet a patient,” said Mamy Randria, of the public hospital of Befelatanana in the capital Antananarivo.
The Red Cross, WHO and other agencies are also providing ambulances to ensure patients with suspected cases do not spread the virus by taking crowded buses and taxis.
Another focus is on improv- ing community surveillance so as to detect infections earlier.
In Uganda, the WHO hopes to halt an outbreak of Marburg, a highly infectious haemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, which killed a 50-yearold woman on October 11, three weeks after her brother died of similar symptoms.
“Uganda is used to managing this kind of outbreak,” Fall said. In the past decade, Uganda has had four outbreaks of Marburg. An outbreak can kill up to 90% of the people who catch the disease.
Several hundred people may have been exposed to the virus at health facilities and at a traditional burial of the dead woman’s brother, who lived near a cave inhabited by Rousettus bats, natural hosts of the virus.
One suspected case and one probable case are being investigated. – Reuters