Guinea: Vaccine Drive Set as Yellow Fever Strikes

[Pathfinder]

Guinea: Vaccine Drive Set as Yellow Fever Strikes

8 january 2010

Dakar ? Guinean health officials plan this month to vaccinate more than 250,000 people in the northeast against yellow fever after one confirmed and several suspected cases emerged in the region.

The woman found to be infected with the mosquito-borne viral infection is in Mandiana, a Guinea prefecture that has never had a yellow fever vaccination campaign, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Health Ministry.
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<!-- close google_inset_a div --->"In some areas we have vaccinated only on a case-by-case basis and Mandiana is one prefecture where we have not done a preventive campaign," Sakoba Ke?ta, Health Ministry head of disease prevention, told IRIN.

A 28-29 December investigation found seven other suspected cases in the prefecture. The outbreak comes weeks after at least 20 people died of yellow fever in the bordering Dengu?l? region of C?te d'Ivoire.

There is no cure for yellow fever and vaccination is the single most important measure against the disease, which kills about 50 percent of severely affected persons who lack treatment for associated fever and dehydration, according to WHO.

Health officials have yet to fix a date for the Mandiana vaccination campaign, which will target 278,681 people in the prefecture - all inhabitants except children under nine months and pregnant women.

"We fully expect it will take place in January," the Health Ministry's Ke?ta said. "We are still meeting with international NGOs to mobilize supplemental funds for the vaccination drive." The campaign would cost US$391,384, according to the ministry's post-investigation report.

WHO's International Coordinating Group on Yellow Fever Vaccine (ICG) has received a request from Guinea to use vaccines from the international emergency stockpile for the Mandiana campaign, Alejandro Costa, scientist with WHO's global alert and response department, told IRIN on 8 January.

The group expects to decide soon, he said. "If the ICG considers that the data submitted by the country is sufficient to justify a release of vaccine from the emergency stockpile the vaccine will be sent immediately."

A nationwide preventive vaccination campaign was set to take place in Guinea in mid-2009 but it has been pushed back to around April 2010 in part due to a lack of vaccine, the Health Ministry's Ke?ta said.

The worldwide supply of yellow fever vaccine is limited, according to WHO. In mid-2009 the ICG appealed for funds to replenish the emergency stockpile which is used for outbreak response and to complete preventative campaigns in the 12 highest risk countries - Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, C?te d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

"The emergency stockpile is funded for 2010, with six million doses in stock and ready to be used in any country facing an outbreak," Costa told IRIN. "WHO is seeking alternatives for financing the stockpile beyond 2010."

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[Shiloh]

Re: Guinea: Vaccine Drive Set as Yellow Fever Strikes

Source: http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/LSGZ-7ZMHLG?OpenDocument

Yellow fever in Guinea

Source: World Health Organization (WHO)

Date: 12 Jan 2010


12 January 2010 -- On 4 January 2010, the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Guinea reported a case of yellow fever to the World Health Organization (WHO). The case occurred in the prefecture of Mandiana belonging to the Kankan region in the east of the country, near the border with C?te d'Ivoire. C?te d'Ivoire has recently conducted an outbreak response in the border health districts of Minignan and Madinani.

The case in Guinea was a 35-year-old woman from the village of Malikila, sub-prefecture of Faralako, prefecture of Mandiana. On 23 November 2009, she presented with a clinical syndrome of fever and jaundice. The case was detected by cross-border investigation of the outbreak in C?te d'Ivoire. Following an outbreak investigation conducted by the Ministry of Health, a further six suspected cases were found in the sub-prefecture of Faralako, Mandiana-Centre and Saladou. These cases are under laboratory investigation.

The regional reference laboratory for yellow fever at Institut Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal, confirmed the yellow fever case by plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT). Other haemorrhagic fevers were excluded by specific tests.

Following the detection of this case, the MoH has decided to vaccinate the entire population of the Mandiana prefecture. A total of 12 sub-prefectures with 290 292 people are targeted for an emergency reactive mass vaccination campaign, scheduled for the third week of January 2010. Vaccines have been made available from the global emergency vaccine stockpile, managed by the International Coordinating Group for Yellow Fever Vaccine Provision (YF-ICG) with funding from the GAVI Alliance and ECHO.

Guinea is one of the high-risk endemic countries in Africa where a series of preventive mass vaccination campaigns has been implemented since 2007. Mandiana prefecture is one of the 25 prefectures in the country considered to be at highest risk of yellow fever. The prefecture was selected for preventive mass vaccination during the YF National Risk Assessment meeting in September 2008, however, the national campaign has not yet taken place due to limited vaccine supply. It is now scheduled to take place in 2010.