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

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.chinlandguardian.com/new...k-sickens-over-80-villagers-47-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.

 

[alert]

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

http://www.promedmail.org/

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

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_laboratory/updates/summaryreport/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_Publication_PDF/IHLCA-Poverty survey.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/oneworld/map/myanmar_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]

 

[sharon sanders]

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!

 

[curiosity]

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?

 

[alert]

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?

I've been searching on it and haven't found anything yet.