Rift Valley fever kills 75
2007-01-08 07:34
Garissa - About 75 people have died in Kenya of a hemorrhagic fever called Rift Valley Fever for the past three weeks and another 183 are infected with it, says a senior health official.
Dr Ahmed Omar Ahmed, the province's chief medical officer, said the death toll could be higher because the figures were only of adult victims as people in Northeastern Province rarely recorded the deaths of their children.
This latest outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in Kenya saw its first victim die in mid-December.
The diseases' victims were residents of either the Northeastern or Coast Province, which received uncharacteristically heavy rain in December that caused flooding and created a large breading ground for mosquitoes, which spread the fever's virus from livestock to humans.
According to the World Health Organisation, infected mosquitoes might also lay eggs, which could survive for up to several years in dry conditions until it rained and they hatched to produce other infected mosquitoes and spread the disease years later.
Drinking raw milk 'dangerous'
Ahmed said that the disease had also spread in Northeastern Province because people had defied a ban on meat and milk sales imposed in December to protect them.
According to the WHO, people could also get Rift Valley Fever through contact with blood or bodily fluids of infected animals such as cattle or goats.
The organisation said that drinking raw milk from infected animals could also spread the disease to humans.
Joseph Musaa, Kenya's director of veterinary services, arrived in Garissa on Sunday with 400 000 vials of animal vaccines to be administered in the province.
He said that the vaccines, which the Untied States had donated, were only a quarter of what was needed to inoculate all animals in the region.
Musaa, who was accompanied by a team of US officials, said that about 1.6 million vials were needed to inoculate about two million animals in Northeastern Province.
According to the WHO, since 1930, after the virus was first isolated during an investigation into an epidemic among sheep on a farm in the Rift Valley of Kenya, there had been outbreaks in sub-Saharan and North Africa.
There was no vaccine for humans.
- AP