Malaria could kill thousands

2005-01-13 20:31

Banda Aceh - Malaria could kill up to 100 000 people in coming months across Indian Ocean communities devastated by the December 26 tsunami if authorities do not quickly move to kill mosquitoes, a health expert warned on Thursday.

Health agencies were planning to launch a massive spraying campaign in Indonesia - the hardest-hit country - on Friday to kill mosquitoes that carry the deadly disease, said Richard Allan, director of the Mentor Initiative, the aid group leading the malaria campaign in Indonesia.

"The combination of the tsunami and the rains are creating the largest single set of (mosquito) breeding sites that Indonesia has ever seen in its history," he said.

Tsunami survivors will be highly vulnerable to the mosquito-borne illness, Allan said, warning that 100 000 could die across the tsunami-hit zone that stretches across a dozen countries from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, India and as far away as Africa's eastern coast.

Immunity gone

"They are stressed. They've got multiple infections already and their immune systems are weakened," Allan said. "Any immunity they had is gone."

The World Health Organisation said on Thursday that seven cases of malaria have been confirmed in the disaster zone in Indonesia, where the December 26 earthquake and tsunami killed more than 106 000.

The cases are showing up now because the malaria season is just beginning and detection systems have been put in place in the last few days to monitor post-tsunami outbreaks.

Health workers will battle malaria by walking house-to-house fumigating all the neighbourhoods of Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province where the devastation is worst, officials said. The operation kicks off on Friday.

Tents in refugee camps dotted around the city will also be sprayed.

In communities along the west coast of Sumatra, where almost all buildings were wiped out, the main defence will be pesticide impregnated plastic sheeting, which villagers use for shelter.

Cholera, dysentery, typhoid and other waterborne diseases usually tend to spring up in the days immediately after a disaster when clean water is scarce. These diseases, which can be deadly, come from drinking water contaminated with faeces.

"So far, we seem to have largely escaped" the threat of the diseases, Allan said.

But he added, "The risk never goes, but it diminishes."

- AP