Published on Nov 23, 2014
The first known case of the
plague was a man from Soamahatamana village in the district of
Tsiroanomandidy, identified on Aug. 31. He died on Sept. 3 and
authorities notified the WHO of the outbreak on Nov. 4, the agency said.
GENEVA (Reuters) - An outbreak of
the plague has killed 40 people out of 119 confirmed cases in
Madagascar since late August and there is a risk of the disease
spreading rapidly in the capital, the World Health Organization (WHO)
said on Friday.
So far two cases and one death have been recorded in the capital
Antananarivo but those figures could climb quickly due to "the city's
high population density and the weakness of the healthcare system", the
WHO warned.
"The
situation is further complicated by the high level of resistance to
deltamethrin (an insecticide used to control fleas) that has been
observed in the country," it added.
Plague, a bacterial disease, is mainly spread from one
rodent to another by fleas. Humans bitten by an infected flea usually
develop a bubonic form of plague, which swells the lymph node and can be
treated with antibiotics, the WHO said.
If the bacteria reach the lungs, the patient develops
pneumonia (pneumonic plague), which is transmissible from person to
person through infected droplets spread by coughing. It is "one of the
most deadly infectious diseases" and can kill people within 24 hours.
Two percent of the cases reported in Madagascar so far have been
pneumonic, it added.
The WHO said it did not recommend any trade or travel
restrictions based on the information available about the outbreak.
The last previously known outbreak of the plague was in Peru in August 2010, according to the WHO.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Hugh Lawson)
No comments:
Post a Comment