Plague strikes Madagascar

PANIC: SHORTAGE OF FACE MASKS, ANTIBIOTICS IN CAPITAL ANTANANARIVO

Island affected by two strains of deadly disease, one spread by rats, other by people.

Crowds of fearful residents flock to their local pharmacies before dawn, desperate to buy masks and antibiotics to stave off a plague outbreak sweeping Madagascar.

In just the past few days, the highly infectious disease has wreaked havoc in the poor Indian Ocean island nation, claiming six lives in the capital city Antananarivo and causing widespread panic.

Like many of his neighbours, 50-year-old Johannes Herinjatovo quickly became overwhelmed by fear as news of the outbreak spread.

He, too, joined the long lines forming outside the capital’s chemists.

“I’d already visited six this morning and at each one they told me that they didn’t have any more masks,” he said as he left a pharmacy empty-handed.

His wife Miora Herinjatovo, 55, had better luck, successfully locating a mask in a hospital.

“Everyone is looking for one,” she said.

“Some pharmacies are saying that there won’t be any more in the city. Others are telling us to wait. We just don’t know.”

Having failed to get hold of a mask, her husband instead collected a handful of generic antibiotics.

The health ministry has advised against using the treatment preventively against the plague, but that has done little to deter worried members of the public.

“We are scared – all of these deaths show that the situation is serious,” said Herinjatovo.

Prime Minister Olivier Mahafaly Solonandrasana dropped a bombshell on national TV on Saturday when he announced that 24 people have so far died from the plague since the end of August.

Madagascar is in the grips of a double plague: both bubonic plague, which is spread by infected rats via flea bites, and pneumonic plague, spread from person to person.

Pneumonic plague can kill quickly, within 18-24 hours of infection if left untreated, but common antibiotics can cure it if they are given early on.

Madagascar has suffered plague almost every year since 1980, often sparked by rats fleeing forest fires.

But the current outbreak has affected large urban areas, increasing the risk of transmission according to the World Health Organisation. The government has banned all public gatherings in the capital. –