About 40 people have died following an outbreak of plague in Madagascar, the World Health Organization has said. The UN health agency also confirmed the plague had also infected almost 80 others, warning of the danger of a “rapid spread” of the disease in the capital, Antananarivo. The situation is worsened by high levels of resistance among fleas to a leading insecticide, the WHO added. Humans usually develop the bubonic form of the plague after being bitten by an infected flea carried by rodents. If diagnosed early, bubonic plague can be treated with antibiotics. But 2% of the cases in Madagascar are the more dangerous pneumonic form of the disease, which can be spread person-to-person by coughing. The first known case in the outbreak was a man in Soamahatamana village in the district of Tsiroanomandidy, about 200km west of Antananarivo, at the end of August. There have been two confirmed cases in the capital, including one death. “There is now a risk of a rapid spread of the disease due to the city’s high population density and the weakness of the healthcare system,” the WHO said. A task force has been activated to manage the outbreak. Last year health experts warned that the island was facing a plague epidemic unless it slowed the spread of the disease. It said that inmates in Madagascar’s rat-infested jails were particularly at risk. Plague, a bacterial disease, is mainly spread from one rodent to another by fleas. Humans bitten by an infected flea usually develop a bubonic form of plague, which swells the lymph node and can be treated with antibiotics, the WHO said. If the bacteria reach the lungs, the patient develops pneumonia (pneumonic plague), which is transmissible from person to person through infected droplets spread by coughing. It is “one of the most deadly infectious diseases” and can kill people within 24 hours. The WHO said it did not recommend any trade or travel restrictions based on the information available about the outbreak. The last previously known outbreak of the plague was in Peru in August 2010, according to the WHO.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 10:58:09 +0000
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