Plague, sleeping sickness in DRC
2001-12-18 14:54
Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo - The bubonic plague, river blindness and sleeping sickness have returned to parts of war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), health officials said.
"All of these diseases are resurgent because of the breakdown of
the health system nationwide," DRC health department chief Kininga Mba said on Monday.
Local officials in central-eastern Maniema Province said
sleeping sickness, a fatal disease transmitted by the tsetse fly
and formally known as trypanosomiasis, was on the rise with at
least 120 new cases reported in 2001.
Meanwhile, river blindness (onchocerciasis) has re-appeared in
parts of northern Orientale Province "where the number of sightless is already significant", said Kumbonyeki Mazendra, the province's health inspector.
He said studies sponsored by the World Health Organisation on
containing the disease, the world's second leading cause of
preventable blindness after trachoma, were under way.
He added that in the Ituri region, in the east, around 300
cases of the plague have been recorded this year.
Orientale and Maniema provinces are both controlled by the rebel
Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), while Ituri is in the hands of an RCD splinter group.
A 1999 peace accord to end a rebellion that brought in several
foreign armies is gradually being implemented in the former Zaire. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA