US marines down with malaria
2003-09-08 19:48
Washington - Twelve US Marines who were in Liberia last month in support of a West African peacekeeping mission have contracted malaria and 21 others have symptoms of the disease, defence officials said on Monday.
Two of the Marines were flown from the USS Iwo Jima warship off the coast of Liberia to a US medical centre in Germany on Saturday and 31 others were flown from the ship on Sunday to the Bethesda Naval Medical Centre in Maryland, said Lieutenant Colonel Jay DeFrank, a Defence Department spokesperson.
The Marines, members of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Lejeune, NC, were in Liberia in mid-August as part of a US quick-reaction force of about 150 US troops. They operated from an airport outside Monrovia, the capital.
US troops normally receive an anti-malarial drug regimen before deploying to a country like Liberia where there is risk of getting the disease. DeFrank said it was not immediately clear whether the Marines who fell ill had taken such medication.
Details on the Marines' condition was not immediately available.
Other officials said that as a precaution, movements of Marines ashore in Liberia from the Iwo Jima and two other US Navy ships off the Liberian coast were being limited for the time being.
There are about 136 US troops ashore in Liberia, mostly Marines providing security at the US Embassy in Monrovia.
The Iwo Jima and two other ships off the coast have about 2 200 Marines and about 2 500 sailors aboard.
Malaria is transmitted by mosquitos that breed in stagnant water and tall grass.
The disease kills 3 000 children a day in Africa and robs the continent of millions of dollars in lost productivity, the United Nations said in a report early this year.
The mosquito-borne disease infects 300 million people a year in the poorest continent and has become increasingly resistant to drugs, said the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children's Fund, Unicef. Yet there are ways to control the disease, they said.
- SAPA