Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Madagascar faces possible bubonic plague epidemic, experts warn (The Independent, October 10 2013)

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

  • Madagascar faces possible bubonic plague epidemic, experts warn (The Independent, October 10 2013)

    [Source: The Independent, full page: (LINK).]


    Madagascar faces possible bubonic plague epidemic, experts warn

    ‎10 October ‎2013


    A bubonic plague epidemic could break out in Madagascar if the country doesn't get a grip on the disease's spread, according to public health experts.


    -
    ------

  • #2
    Re: Madagascar faces possible bubonic plague epidemic, experts warn (The Independent, October 10 2013)

    [Source: The Guardian, full page: (LINK).]


    Bubonic plague outbreak feared in Madagascar

    ‎10 October ‎2013 | David Smith


    Health experts and authorities on Indian Ocean island launch campaign to clean up rat-infested jails to halt spread of 'black death'. Madagascar is at risk of a major outbreak of bubonic plague unless it can clean up its rat-infested jails, health experts have warned. The Indian Ocean island became the most severely affected country in the world last year, with 256 cases and 60 fatalities from the disease known as the "black death" when it swept through Europe in the 14th century.

    (?)


    -
    ------

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Madagascar faces possible bubonic plague epidemic, experts warn (The Independent, October 10 2013)

      [Source: ProMedMail.org, full page: (LINK). Edited.]


      Published Date: 2013-10-19 14:13:47, Subject: PRO/AH/EDR> Plague - Madagascar: prison, urban risk, alert, Archive Number: 20131019.2009541

      PLAGUE - MADAGASCAR: PRISON, URBAN RISK, ALERT

      A ProMED-mail post http://www.promedmail.org / ProMED-mail is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases http://www.isid.org

      Date: Thu 10 Oct 2013 / Source: BBC [edited] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24461474


      Madagascar faces a bubonic plague epidemic unless it slows the spread of the disease, experts have warned. The Red Cross and Pasteur Institute say inmates in the island's rat-infested jails are particularly at risk.

      The number of cases rises each October as hot humid weather attracts [promotes breeding of] fleas, which transmit the disease from rats and other animals to humans. Madagascar had 256 plague cases and 60 deaths in 2012, the world's highest recorded number [since the Black Death].

      Bubonic plague, known as the Black Death when it killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe during the Middle Ages, is now rare. Bubonic plague swept through Europe in the 14th Century, killing between one third and one half of the entire population. But the Black Death, as it was called, seemed to disappear some time in the 17th Century, and many people today assume it has died out completely. In fact bubonic plague remains a serious public health problem in many parts of the world. In Madagascar [and Mongolia and the western USA], plague is endemic in the animal population, and cannot be eradicated.

      The prevalence of rats in Madagascar's prisons means the plague can spread easily. Fleas from plague-carrying rats infect prisoners, prison guards and visitors. And rats, unlike the prisoners, can go in and out of jail anytime. The threat to the general population is clear.

      October is regarded as the start of the plague season in Madagascar. The hot, humid weather means more fleas, and more risk of disease.

      The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva and the Pasteur Institute have worked with local health groups in Madagascar since February 2012 on a campaign to improve prison hygiene. "If the plague gets into prisons there could be a sort of atomic explosion of plague within the town. The prison walls will never prevent the plague from getting out and invading the rest of the town," said the institute's Christophe Rogier.

      The ICRC said the 3000 inmates of Antanimora, the main prison in the heart of the capital Antananarivo, live with a huge rat population which spreads infected fleas through food supplies, bedding, and clothing.

      The ICRC's Evaristo Oliviera said this could affect not only inmates and staff, but others they come into contact with. "A prison is not a sealed place, first of all the staff themselves who work in the prison are at risk, and they go home at the end of the day, already perhaps being a vector of the disease," he told the BBC. "Also the rats themselves, they can go in and out of the jail and also propagate the disease. And the prisoners do have visitors who can be also infected, and the prisoners eventually go out as well so we have many, many ins and outs for the disease to spread."

      The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the eradication project undertaken by the ICRC is tricky because simply killing the rats is not enough. To prevent their infected fleas transferring to another host, possibly a human, the insects must be destroyed as well as the rodents, she says.

      Experts say that Africa -- especially Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- accounts for more than 90 percent of cases worldwide. During the last 20 years, at least 3 countries experienced outbreaks of human plague after dormant periods of about 30-50 years, experts say. These areas were India in 1994 and 2002, Indonesia in 1997 and Algeria in 2003. According to the WHO, the last significant outbreak of bubonic plague was in Peru in 2010 when 12 people were found to have been infected.

      --

      Communicated by: ProMED-mail promed@promedmail.org


      [As yet, in 2013, there have been no reported cases of plague infection on the island nation of Madagascar [for 2012, see ProMED archives below].

      Plague is caused by the _Yersinia pestis_ bacillus, carried by rat fleas. At the start of the rainy season, currently, rats flee the sewers of Madagascar in massive numbers and take refuge in people's cottages. [The following paragraph of this posting is from 1998 (Chanteau S, Ratsifasoamanana L, Rasoamanana B, et al: Plague, a Reemerging Disease in Madagascar. Emerg Infect Dis 1998; 4(1): 101-4:; http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/4/1/98-0114_article.htm

      "Between 1930 and 1990, bubonic plague had "virtually disappeared" on the island due to efficient pest-control and good health management. However since 1990, an annual 200 cases are being reported and bubonic plague takes on epidemic form especially in the port of Mahajanga each year. In the capital city of Antananarivo more cases are also being notified each year since 1990. Madagascar (pop. 13 million) has accounted for 45 percent of all the cases of plague in Africa."

      Fatalities related to plague usually are caused by spread of the organism from the bubo (the very painful infected lymph node which drains the area where the flea bite occurred) to the bloodstream. The bacteremia can cause a coagulopathy producing the purpura seen in the "Black Plague" and also spread to the lungs causing a hemorrhagic pneumonia. It is the pneumonia that can facilitate person-to-person transmission.

      Madagascar was the location of the isolation of multi-antimicrobial resistant _Y. pestis_ in 1995 (Galimand M, Guiyoule A, Gerbaud G, et al: Multidrug resistance in _Yersinia pestis_ mediated by a transferable plasmid. N Engl J Med 1997; 337(10): 677-80; http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199709043371004). The strain was resistant to chloramphenicol, streptomycin, and tetracycline but sensitive to fluoroquinolones and trimethoprim as well as other aminoglycosides. This was an ominous observation; however, it is not clear if this naturally occurring strain has persisted or spread. - Mod.LL

      A HealthMap/ProMED-mail map can be accessed at: http://healthmap.org/r/1kSe.]

      (?)


      -
      -------

      Comment

      Working...
      X