HEALTH-SOMALIA: Deadly Fever on the Run

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Mar 12 1998 (IPS) - An epidemic which claimed dozens of lives in Somalia in the past four months has ended, according to a top United Nations official here.

“The Rift Valley Fever outbreak in southern Somalia is over,” said UN Humanitarian Coordinator Dominik Langenbacher. “All the evidence we have collected so far suggests that the epidemic has burned out.”

“And there is no evidence at all that Rift Valley Fever ever spread beyond the flood-affected areas in the south of the country,” Langenbacher said in a statement faxed to IPS on Wednesday.

He said the information was based on extensive field investigations conducted by a World Health Organisation (WHO) team including professionals from the National Institute of Virology in South Africa, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, United States, and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The UN official said that over the last three months, the experts travelled to various parts of the country to investigate reports of haemorrhagic fever outbreaks in humans and animals.

“From the evidence that was collected, it can be concluded that there was exaggeration of the numbers of people affected by Rift Valley Fever in Somalia,” said Langenbacher. “While there have been a number of people affected by the disease, most of the people who were reported as suffering from Rift Valley Fever were actually suffering from other diseases.”

Langenbacher’s statement came one month after Dr Mike Ryan, who headed a WHO team to investigate the disease in north-eastern Kenya on the border with Somalia, said the epidemic, which has killed 80 people in Somalia, was receding.

The epidemic also killed 400 persons in Kenya. Since Ryan’s announcement, no new cases have been reported in this country.

Ryan had attributed the decline to the reduction of El Nino- related heavy rains and unfavourable weather conditions which prevented the breeding of mosquitoes that transmit the disease. The unusually heavy rains began in mid-October but tapered off early this year.

“The mosquitoes themselves start to die off once the atmosphere starts to dry out,” he had said. “So I think that we are seeing a natural decrease in the cases because the virus is beginning to disappear.”

Langenbacher said investigations in northeast Somalia showed that there were no potential breeding sites for the Aedes mosquito, which transmits Rift Valley Fever. The sheep and goats the team saw there were described as being in fine condition and livestock owners had not experienced any disease problems in the last six months, he said. The same goes for the northwest, he added.

But in the flooded areas of southern Somalia, the U.N. field investigation team found that the floods had resulted in loss of livestock. However, to what extent exactly remained unclear.

Aid agencies said last week that in the Juba and Shabelle River Valleys in southern Somalia, for example, some 2000 people had died, 33,500 livestock had perished and 60,000 hectares of cropland had been inundated by a combination of flooding and water- borne diseases like Rift Valley Fever.

However, Langenbacher said the “investigators had strong doubts about the figures provided due to the fact that exaggerated figures could have been given by livestock owners”. He added that the investigations showed that the majority of the animals died directly and indirectly from effects of the flooding.

“Many animals, after standing in water for lengthy periods of time, got lame, suffered infections of the joints and gradually wasted away and died from pneumonia or other causes,” said Langenbacher.

He added that “healthy livestock is the backbone of the Somali economy” and that the rumours of a major animal and human Rift Valley Fever epidemic in south Somalia had caused tremendous public concern in Somalia and abroad.

“What needs to be done now is to improve the disease surveillance in Somalia, where there may still be residual pockets of virus activity,” he added. “Apart from disease surveillance, animal health needs to be improved wherever needed. We are presently looking for funds to do just that.”

Rift Valley Fever, a viral disease commonly found in sub- Saharan Africa, derives its name from the Rift Valley of East Africa, where it has been prevalent. It is transmitted mainly by infected biting insects and occasionally by contact with the body fluids of infected animals.

“Rift Valley Fever is generally a very mild disease and only a very small percentage of people get the haemorrhagic type of the disease,” said Ryan.

HEALTH-SOMALIA: Deadly Fever on the Run

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Mar 11 1998 (IPS) - An epidemic of Rift Valley Fever that claimed dozens of lives in Somalia during the past four months was now over, according to a top United Nations official here.
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