H5N1

DR Congo: Ebola toll rises, health system on its knees

Via ReliefWeb, a report by Missionary International News Service Agency: Ebola toll rises, health system on its knees. Excerpt:

Since the start of the month the death toll of the Ebola outbreak in the north-east has climbed from 15 to 31, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, defining the situation “serious”. 

Fadela Chaib, a spokeswoman for the Geneva-based agency, stressed that “it is unusual that the first person to be infected was a health worker”. The areas affected by the outbreak are Isiro and Viadana (70km apart), in the Eastern Province (north-east). 

“It was said that the epidemic has reached its maximum peak, but that the people must remain vigilant since the declining phase hasn’t begun yet and the virus cannot be considered under control. The infected were brought to the General Hospital of Isiro, and from fear residents are avoiding the area”, said local MISNA missionary sources. 

There is no specific treatment for Ebola, a virus that appeared the first time in 1976 in Zaire at the time and cyclically reappears in various Central African nations, including Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania. The most deadly outbreak was in 2000 that left 225 dead. 

Ebola, which causes a hemorrhagic fever and has a death rate of up to 90%, is transmitted through direct contact with infected people, in particular at funerals. 

The WHO and UN have launched an international appeal for $2-million “to join in the fight against this epidemic, which if not controlled quickly, is a public health emergency that can quickly be global”, said Dr. Léodegal Bazira, WHO representative in the DR-Congo. Funds should help “the government to organize this struggle to provide means to fight this. It is a struggle that many countries, not only the DR-Congo cannot undertake alone”, he added. 

“Congo’s health sector has for decades been left to its own demise, with the result of an increasing critical degradation. There is a lack of political will, incapacity of the State and lack of funds that have led to a two track health system”, denounces a civil society source of the Eastern Province. “Because current, today’s problem is Ebola, but how many people have died in silence from cholera, malaria, malnutrition and diarrhea, all easily treatable”, added the source, who prefers to remain anonymous. 

There is a lack of health facilities in the former Belgian colony, especially in the small towns and remote villages, but also medical supplies, drugs and doctors. The private structures and those run by the church work better, but often at prohibitive costs for the majority of the people.

Cambodia: Kantha Bopha Hospitals in August

Earlier this evening I tried to post an excerpt from a PDF published by Dr. Beat Richner and describing the achievements of his Kantha Bopha Hospitals in August. For some reason, the post messed up my blog's formatting. So I've deleted the original post. To find Dr. Richner's report, click on the link above, and then on the "Facts & Figures - August 2012" link you'll find on Kantha Bopha's website.

India: Dengue set to challenge malaria as king of vectors in Goa

Via The Times of India: Dengue set to challenge Malaria as king of vectors. Excerpt:

PANAJI: With over 600 people already having tested positive for malaria in Goa, it has earned the title of being a major vector-borne disease in the state. Unfortunately, this has probably led Goa to ignore the rise of other vector-borne diseases prevalent in the state, such as dengue, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis and filariasis. 

Up to 2007, only 36 cases of dengue were reported in Goa, but by 2010, that figure touched 194. Though the state has tried to curb this trend, the dengue scare has slowly but surely gained a foothold in Goa. 

From July 14 to 17, 2012, a total of 170 samples were tested for dengue, and four were confirmed to be positive, with one each under the jurisdiction of the public health centres at Candolim, Corlim, Beti and Aldona. 

From January 2012 to August 17, 2012, the total number of samples tested for dengue was as many as 623, out of which 32 have tested positive.

Pakistan: Malaria on the rise in Karachi University

Via The Nation: Malaria on the rise in KU. Excerpt:

The Karachi University has become the mosquito breeding place, as the registration of the confirmed malaria cases have become routine matter in the university’s clinic. 

Dozens of malaria cases are being registered monthly in the campus of the university. The lethargic behaviour of Karachi University’s sanitation department towards cleanliness is a major cause behind the breeding of malaria mosquitoes in the pools of filthy stagnant water. 

Teaching and non-teaching staff of the KU and their families living in the residential area of the varsity are the victims of malaria. Despite several complaints from the staff of the university to the authorities concerned, rainwater is still presenting the look of lake in various parts of the university. 

Prof Faiyaz Vaid, a senior leader of Karachi University Teachers’ Society (KUTS), told The Nation that KUTS raised the issue of cleanliness in a meeting held recently at the KU Vice Chancellor Office between the teachers’ representatives and KU Vice Chancellor Muhammad Qaiser. He said that teachers are very concerned over the meagre sanitation conditions in the KU campus, which is causing mosquito breeding and diseases to the residents of the campus. 

It is pertinent to mention here that KU Professor Dr Shakil Ouj lost his son due to dengue fever two years back but the department is still apathetic towards the issue and not willing to eradicate mosquitoes from the university campus. 

A non-teaching staffer, on a condition of anonymity, told The Nation dengue fever and malaria are real threat for our families, while children and old citizens are at higher risk. When KU Clinic Senior Health Officer was contacted by The Nation, he confirmed that the cases of malaria are being reported and said that these cases are of P.Vivax (PV), which is a kind of human malaria.

Pakistan: Flooding maroons 500,000 in Balochistan; 2,000 houses destroyed

Thanks to Bill McKibben for tweeting the link to this Dawn.com report: Flooding maroons 500,000 in Balochistan; 2,000 houses destroyed. Excerpt:

QUETTA: Flooding in the province of Balochistan has left at least half a million people marooned, besides destroying over 2,000 houses, Chief Secretary of Balochistan Babar Yaqoob Fateh said on Saturday. 

Torrential rains and flash floods in Naseerabad and Jaffarabad districts have caused damage, destroyed standing crops on thousands of acres completely washed away road network. 

“Dera Allah Yar, Dera Murad Jamali, Sohbat pur, Manjopur, Manjoshori areas are still under two to six feet of water, increasing the plight of the thousands of families living in these areas,” he said while talking to reporters at the Provincial Disaster Management Auhtority’s office in Quetta. 

Yaqoob said that he had contacted his counterpart in Sindh and asked him not to divert water from Jacobabad towards Balochistan as it would worsen the situation in the country’s largest province. 

“We are in contact with the Sindh government to avoid more losses in Balochistan,” he said. 

The provincial official said that losses caused by the flash floods and hill torrents in northern and southern Balochistan were so huge that the provincial government alone could not cope with the calamity. 

“International humanitarian organisations, federal government and philanthropists should come forward and assist us in the relief and rehabilitation process,” Babar said.

And since the victims of this disaster are citizens of a country unpopular in much of the West, the assistance will be slow, grudging, and insufficient.

Egypt: Suspected H5N1 in three brothers

Via Treyfish's H5N1 Pandemic Information News: Egypt- 3 Brothers suspected bird flu. The story is a computer translation that really doesn't help much. But my friend and longtime colleague Dr. Azza Sedky is Egyptian and the author of Egypt, a much-read English/Arabic blog on Egyptian politics. I asked her for a translation, and this is what she sent:

Bird flu infected brothers cause panic at Menia’s Health Department

In Menia by Emad Maher

Today, Saturday, the Health Department in Menia announced a state of emergency and took all the necessary measures after suspecting three brothers had caught the bird flu.

The Health Department announced that brothers Aly Ahmed Farouk, 19 years; Hamada, 16; and Hazim, 9; all living in the village of Manshiet Galal, from the Beny Mazar area in Menia, are suspected to have bird flu. The three brothers were first quarantined at the Beny Mazar Hospital, where they were kept under close observation, and then they were transferred to the Menia Hospital for tropical diseases. Blood samples taken from the three were sent to a lab in Cairo for analysis.

At the same time, a health team formed of a veterinarian, a physician, and security forces visited the patients’ home and other homes in the vicinity for decontamination purposes and to guarantee that the poultry on the premises are not infected.

This is another reminder that Flublogia really needs more hot-zone bloggers, preferably fluent in both English and their local language. 

Mexico: Spike in dengue cases, but no health alert

Via Prensa Latina: Pico de dengue en México, pero sin alerta sanitaria. [Spike in dengue in Mexico, but no health alert] Excerpt, with my translation:

En los últimos nueve meses se registró un pico en la transmisión del dengue en México, por lo que podría ser un factor de preocupación en el sector salud al cierre de este sexenio, destacan hoy medios de prensa.   

The last nine months have seen a spike in dengue transmission in Mexico, which could be a worrying factor in the health sector at the close of this six-year period, news media emphasized today.

De acuerdo con la evaluación del gobierno federal, hay identificados como focos rojos 170 municipios del país, donde se concentran unos 70 mil planteles educativos y siete millones de viviendas, consignó el diario El Universal en su edición sabatina. 

According to the federal government's assessment, 170 municipalities have been identified as hot zones with 70,000 educational facilities and 7 million households, the daily El Universal said in its Saturday edition.

Entre enero pasado y el 4 de septiembre se confirmaron 20 mil 290 casos de dengue y 75 mil 514 probables, de los cuales 13 mil 253 son del tipo clásico y siete mil del hemorrágico, indicó un reciente boletín epidemiológico de la Secretaría de Salud. 

Between last January and September 4, 20,290 dengue cases were confirmed in addition to 75,514 probable cases; 13,253 were classic and 7,000 were hemorrhagic, according to a recent epidemiological bulletin from the Secretariat of Health.

Según precisó Miguel Ángel Lezana, director del Centro Nacional de Vigilancia Epidemiológica y Control de Enfermedades, los estados del sur-sureste son los más afectados por el brote. 

According to Miguel Ángel Lezana, director of the Nation Centre for Epidemiologicl Surveillance and Disease Control, the states of the south and southeast are the ones most affected by the outbreak.

Sin embargo, el titular de Salud, Salomón Chertorivski, descartó que la dependencia tenga contemplado lanzar una alerta epidemiológica.

Nevertheless, Health Secretary Salomón Chertorivski denied that the secretariat is contemplating launching an epidemiological alert.

Vietnam: Tenement water full of arsenic

An old left-winger once observed that "When you put socialism in a backward country, you get backward socialism." When you put capitalism in such a country, results aren't much better. Via Saigon Giai Phong: 150 households at a tenement in Hanoi use arsenic water for years. Excerpt:

About 150 households at a tenement in Hanoi were shocked after they learnt that the water they have used in the past several years has been tested containing extremely high contents of deadly arsenic.   

The tenement, located in Tu Liem District’s My Dinh Commune, was built by the Hanoi Real Estate Investment Joint Stock Company (C’LAND) and then sold to about 150 families in 2007.   

The water to this apartment block is provided by C’LAND which sources the water from a drilled well.   

“During the past 5 years, we sometimes often found the water dirty, muddy and had a reddish color. We reported it every time we found out and the company took some remedies but the problem still continues,” To Minh Kien, head of group of the tenement’s residents, told SGGP newspaper.   

On August 21, the residents sent some water samples to the Chemistry Institute for tests and the result showed that the samples are contaminated with arsenic at 37-times higher than the acceptable level, Kien added.   

One resident, said, “My wife and children have had to live in another place in the past 2 years. Well water here is very harmful to health. They filtered the water first before testing it”   

On September 13, C’LAND and Hoang Hai Anh Co Ltd, held a dialogue with the affected residents to seek solutions.   

The companies asked locals to pay as much as 70 percent of the cost for building a pipeline system that will be connected to the city’s running water supply so that the meeting ended with no agreement made, Kien said.   

According to Kien, the residents require the installation of water supply systems as the legitimate rights of the people here, that was written in the contract.   

Therefore, residents here constantly asked for clean water of this neighborhood. The investors are buying the temporary water to supply for people’s using.   

However, as reflected by the household, the amount of water supplied by the investors too little, not enough for the needs of more than 500 inhabitants here. Many households still have to buy bottled water for use.

ECDC: Outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Spain

Via ECDC: Epidemiological Update: Outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Blanes, Catalonia, Spain. Excerpt:

The Public Health Authorities of Catalonia, Spain, have notified a community acquired outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Blanes. Blanes is a coastal town in the province of Girona. 

The outbreak was detected during the week from 3 to 9 September. Up to date, 10 cases have been notified of whom four are hospitalised. Four of the affected persons are tourists from the Netherlands and Latvia. The remaining six people are Spanish. 

Dates of disease onset vary between 28 August and 3 September. The first three detected cases were tourists staying in a campsite and another had visited it, so the initial investigations were concentrated to this site. The rest of the cases were detected among people staying in homes in the municipality. 

The water system in the campsite and cooling towers close to the campsite have been cleaned and disinfected and samples have been taken. Microbiological results are still pending. 

No more cases have been notified with date of symptoms onset after 3 September.

B2B H5N1 continues to expand in northern, central Vietnam

Via Xinhua, a long, informative report: Bird flu continues to expand in northern, central Vietnam. Excerpt:

Bird flu has spread to two more provinces in northern Vietnam as of Sept. 14, making the total number of provinces infected with the disease to seven, local media reported on Friday. 

In Tuyen Quang province, more than 17,600 infected fowls had been culled, a reporter of Vietnam's state-run News Agency told Xinhua on Friday. 

He said bird flu first appeared in one commune in Son Duong district on Aug. 10, and as of Sept. 7 it spread to other nine communes in this district and Tuyen Quang provincial town. 

To prevent the spreading of H5N1 virus, the province's Department of Animal Health has implemented strict measures in response to the epidemics, including establishing a Steering Committee for avian influenza epidemic prevention and control at all levels from district to commune, setting up mobile checkpoints to control illegal poultry transportation, killing infected poultry and stopping all poultry slaughtering, purchasing and transporting activities in the infected areas. 

So far, the local authority has supplied 10,000 liters of disinfectant and 70 tons of lime powder to clean those areas having infected poultry. In addition, the national reserve support fund has provided the province with 250,000 doses of bird flu vaccines. 

Nguyen Van Quang, a local resident in Yen Son district, which is close to the provincial town of Tuyen Quang, told Xinhua on Friday, that his family raises a flock of about 50 fowls. Thanks to his careful breeding, the flock is safe and growing well. 

Meanwhile, in Hoa Binh province, four hamlets in two communes in Luong Son district have 1,140 infected fowls and 848 others died, reported local media on Wednesday. The local authority instructed the culling of all infected poultry and implemented measures to prevent the expanse of the disease. 

According to the Department of Animal Health under the Vietnam' s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, as of Sept. 12, bird flu has spread to seven provinces in Vietnam's northern and central regions including Ha Tinh, Ninh Binh, Nam Dinh, Bac Giang, Quang Ngai, Tuyen Quang and Hoa Binh. 

In early September, the ministry released news that a new bird flu strain was developing unexpectedly in Vietnam and caused a big concern to the government and public. 

According to the National Animal Health Diagnosis Center, the new strain of bird flu virus, which is suspected to have higher risk of causing human death than previously known ones, appeared in July and strongly spread in August in Vietnam's central and northern provinces. 

The new strain was thought to belong to H5N1 - Clade 2.3.2.1, which is different from the two strains of A and B that appeared in Vietnam in 2011, due to its higher pathogenic risk. 

Apart from the newly-found strain of the virus, the bird flu has developed unexpectedly in the country so far this year. Normally, avian influenza appears shortly before or after the traditional lunar Tet holidays, which often falls in late January and early February. However, it has appeared since July this year and fast spread with unexpected signs.