Village hit by measles
2004-10-28 11:00
Daniel Balint-Kurti
Abuja - An outbreak of measles in a remote Nigerian village has killed a dozen people, Nigeria's state-owned news agency reported on Wednesday.
The News Agency of Nigeria said the village chief of the riverside village of Oyuma recently wrote to the local Bayelsa State government, calling for urgent help against the disease.
The report gave no details on when the deaths in the poor Niger Delta community occurred. It quoted a local government health official as saying he was "determined to curtail any further spread of the disease."
Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 500 000 deaths from measles every year, or half the global total.
Measles is an airborne disease, which thrives in areas where there is poor sanitation. - AP
- SAPA