Mass vaccinations being issued due to outbreak of rabies from bat bites, Amazon region

[Pathfinder]

Mass vacinations being issued due to outbreak of rabies from bat bites, Amazon region

Posted on December 3, 2011

...However, Chiriboga lamented the difficulties in diagnosing the disease and the resistance of indigenous communities to the vaccine.Three remote communities in the canton Taisha in Morona Santiago province, have been affected by the outbreak of the deadly disease, which occurs after bat bites infected with the virus and so far there have been ten deaths from this cause ...

Full text:
http://latinamericacurrentevents.co...of-rabies-from-bat-bites-amazon-region/14159/

 

[Tonka]

Re: Mass vaccinations being issued due to outbreak of rabies from bat bites, Amazon region

http://www.biobiochile.cl/2011/12/0...ador-mordidos-por-murcielagos-con-rabia.shtml
Spanish to English translation

Eight killed in Ecuador Indigenous children bitten by rabid bat
Monday December 5, 2011 | 8:42
Posted by Denise Charpentier | Information is from AFP ? 140 views


At least eight indigenous children have died since November 17 after being bitten by bats infected with rabies in a remote area of ​​the Amazon in Ecuador, according to a report from the Ministry of Health of that country.

"It has confirmed the deaths of eight children by bat bites," said the head of the ministry, David Chiriboga, during the weekly work of President Rafael Correa on Saturday delayed broadcast.

The outbreak affected three indigenous communities in the province of Morona Santiago (east), inhabited by some 540 scattered people and is accessible only by air, the minister said.

Disease is a "very serious", difficult to diagnose and whose only treatment is vaccination, but "once the symptoms have been established it becomes deadly," he said.

Chiriboga said ministry staff carried out an immunization campaign, which faces an additional difficulty: the indigenous belief that the problem has a supernatural origin, so first come shamans (healers).

Because of this, President Correa urged residents "not to fear modern medicine," because "many of those bitten were not a doctor but the shaman" and when they received the vaccine was too late.

The minister said that in coordination with the agriculture portfolio is running a different strategy of killing the bats.

"It captures and coated with a cream that has a blood thinner, so that when the herd back to the other lick the substance and eliminated," he said.