Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Burma: Unidentified Disease Outbreak Sickens Over 80 Villagers, 47 Seriously in Chin State

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Burma: Unidentified Disease Outbreak Sickens Over 80 Villagers, 47 Seriously in Chin State

    Source: http://www.chinlandguardian.com/news...seriously.html

    Disease Outbreak Sickens Over 80 Villagers, 47 Seriously

    28 December 2011: Over 80 people have fallen ill after being contracted with a mysterious infectious disease in three villages in Falam Township, Chin State.

    The outbreak, which started on December 18, has overwhelmed local health officials who scrambled an emergency response team to respond to a rapidly growing number of people falling ill in Hnahthial, Ngailan and Haimual villages.

    At least 47 villagers are now described as being in 'serious' conditions.

    A local villager told Chinland Guardian, "People came down with Flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache, nausea and coughing. Children under 10 years old particularly have contracted the disease."

    While there has been no reported death, the local said that there are reasons to be concerned about such a possibility.

    Hnahthial village, which has about 40 households, has been hardest hit with about 50 of the villagers being sick. In Ngailan Village, which has only 14 households, 20 people have fallen ill. With a total of 22 households, Haimual Village has also seen 10 locals struck by the mysterious illness.

    Local health officials have yet to identify the disease.

    Recently named Burma's poorest state by the United Nations, Chin State has only 12 full-fledged hospitals for a population of half a million people.

    Despite the extreme needs, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party government did not set up a health or education ministry at the State level.

  • #2
    Re: Burma: Unidentified Disease Outbreak Sickens Over 80 Villagers, 47 Seriously in Chin State

    ProMED is the largest publicly-available surveillance system conducting global reporting of infectious diseases outbreaks. Subscribe today.


    Published Date: 2011-12-29 17:20:39
    Subject: PRO/EDR> Undiagnosed respiratory disease - Myanmar: (CH) RFI
    Archive Number: 20111229.3700

    UNDIAGNOSED RESPIRATORY DISEASE - MYANMAR: (CHIN), REQUEST FOR
    INFORMATION
    ************************************************** ************************

    A ProMED-mail post
    ProMED is the largest publicly-available surveillance system conducting global reporting of infectious diseases outbreaks. Subscribe today.

    ProMED-mail is a program of the
    International Society for Infectious Diseases
    The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) brings together a network of individuals from around the world.


    Date: 28 Dec 2011Source: Chinland Guardian [edited]http://www.chinlandguardian.com/news-2009/1660-disease-outbreak-sickens-over-80-villagers-47-seriously.html


    Over 80 people have fallen ill after contracting a mysterious
    infectious disease in 3 villages in Falam Township, Chin State.

    The outbreak, which started on [18 Dec 2011], has overwhelmed local
    health officials, who scrambled an emergency team to respond to a
    rapidly growing number of people falling ill in Hnahthial, Ngailan and
    Haimual villages.

    At least 47 villagers are now described as being in "serious"
    condition.

    A local villager told Chinland Guardian: "People came down with
    flu-like symptoms, such as fever, headache, nausea and coughing.
    Children under 10 years old, particularly, have contracted the
    disease." While there have been no reported deaths, the local villager
    said that there are reasons to be concerned about such a possibility.

    Hnahthial village, which has about 40 households, has been hardest
    hit, with about 50 of the villagers being sick. In Ngailan village,
    which has only 14 households, 20 people have fallen ill. With a total
    of 22 households, Haimual village has also seen 10 locals struck by
    the mysterious illness.

    Local health officials have yet to identify the disease.

    Recently named Burma's poorest state by the United Nations, Chin state
    has only 12 full-fledged hospitals for a population of half a million
    people.

    Despite extreme need, the military-backed Union Solidarity and
    Development Party government did not set up a health or education
    ministry at the state level.

    --
    Communicated by:
    ProMED-mail from HealthMap Alerts
    <promed@promedmail.org>

    [The description of this outbreak is not sufficiently precise to
    suggest a diagnosis. The features of the outbreak are compatible with
    that of influenza virus infection or of many other respiratory virus
    pathogens
    .

    As of 3 Dec 2011, Myanmar was not one of the 83 countries, areas or
    territories reporting influenza virus infection data (or its absence)
    to FluNet
    (http://www.who.int/influenza/gisrs_l.../en/index.html).
    In the past, influenza in Myanmar has exhibited seasonality,
    coinciding with the rainy season from June to August (C. Dapat et al.,
    Intervirology. 2009;52(6):310-20. - Mod.CP]

    [This is the 1st report of an undiagnosed respiratory outbreak in
    Myanmar. The above newswire describes an influenza-like illness
    affecting the population, with a stated increased occurrence in
    children less than 10 years of age.

    A rough estimate of the attack rate in each of the affected villages
    using an average household (HH) size of 6 (according to a 2007 UNDP
    report on a Poverty Profile survey, the average HH size in rural areas
    of Chin state is 6.1 and in urban areas of Chin state 5.6; see table
    2.1 on page 48 at
    http://www.mm.undp.org/UNDP_Publicat...y%20survey.pdf)
    shows an attack rate of 21 percent in Hnahthial village, 12 percent in
    Ngailan village, and 8 percent in Haimual village
    .

    The differential diagnosis includes influenza, parainfluenza and other
    respiratory viruses
    . Given the stated economic and infrastructural
    conditions in the area, there is significant justification for
    concerns of future fatalities related to complications associated with
    febrile respiratory illnesses in such a population.

    More information on this outbreak and results of the investigation
    conducted by the emergency response team would be greatly
    appreciated.

    Chin state is in the western part of Myanmar sharing borders with both
    India and Bangladesh (see
    http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworl...anmar_map2.htm). Falam
    township can be seen in the northern part of Chin state, not far from
    the border with Manipur state in India. For the interactive
    HealthMap/ProMED map of Falam township, Chin state, Myanmar, see
    http://healthmap.org/r/1Aye. - Mod.MPP]

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Burma: Unidentified Disease Outbreak Sickens Over 80 Villagers, 47 Seriously in Chin State

      Thanks Shiloh. I submitted to ProMED but apparently I was not the first one to submit this to them so "ProMEDmail" got the credit.

      Everyone can see that this article was posted on FT @7:47am on December 28. Also, I placed this on our twitter account on the 28th. Facebook was having some problems with their feeds that day so many of our tweets did not transfer over to our facebook page. Attached is a snap shot of our twitter account postings on the 28th.

      This is not like the old days on the internet. Today, with multiple social media posting venues, it is clear who posts what - and when.

      Thanks everyone for participating!
      Attached Files

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Burma: Unidentified Disease Outbreak Sickens Over 80 Villagers, 47 Seriously in Chin State

        I can't find the post on PRO-MED anymore. Any updates?

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Burma: Unidentified Disease Outbreak Sickens Over 80 Villagers, 47 Seriously in Chin State

          Originally posted by curiosity View Post
          I can't find the post on PRO-MED anymore. Any updates?
          I've been searching on it and haven't found anything yet.

          Comment

          Working...
          X