Sri Lanka confirms Chikungunya viral fever epidemic
Pastor Dale Morgan
Sri Lanka confirms Chikungunya viral fever epidemic*
25 Nov 2006 06:53:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
COLOMBO, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka has confirmed an epidemic of the
mosquito-borne Chikungunya viral fever, a top health official said on
Saturday. Doctors suspect it has infected 5,000 people in the island's
far north.
Dr. Nihal Abeysinghe, director of the state Epidemiology Department,
said pockets of the fever had been detected in Sri Lanka's northwest,
south and east, but could not say how many cases had been reported.
"We have got some samples down to Colombo and we handed them over to
five different laboratories. All five have reported it as Chikungunya,"
Abeysinghe said. "You could say it is (an epidemic)."
"We have confirmed there is an outbreak going on in Kalmunai, Mannar,
Batticaloa, Puttalam and some parts of Colombo city," he added. "It is
in densely populated pockets."
Abeysinghe said he believed up to 60 percent of reported fever cases
were due to Chikungunya.
"There are several different fevers. Not all fevers reported are
Chikungunya," he said, but added that bird flu was "very, very unlikely
because there are no respiratory symptoms, no cough or cold or anything
like that".
However laboratories had yet to confirm whether an outbreak of viral
fever in the northern Jaffna peninsula, cut off from the rest of the
country for months amid renewed civil war between the state and Tamil
Tiger rebels, was Chikungunya as suspected.
DENGUE TOO
The outbreak comes as Sri Lanka also grapples with a sharp increase in
dengue fever cases as monsoon rains create breeding conditions for
mosquitoes which carry the diseases.
Symptoms of Chikungunya include high fever, joint and muscular pain,
severe headaches, body aches and a rash similar to that seen in dengue
patients. While the disease is painful, the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) says no deaths from Chikungunya have been
documented in scientific literature.
Dr. A. Ketheeswaran, director of provincial health services for the
Jaffna peninsula, suspects the viral fever spreading in the far north is
Chikungunya.
"In Jaffna, this viral fever which has the symptoms of Chikungunya is
spreading very fast. I find that more than 5,000 people have been
infected," Ketheeswaran said.
Cut off behind rebel lines, Jaffna residents are living on rations
shipped in by sea from the south, and medicines and food are in short
supply. Residents said doctors had recommended paracetamol as a fever
preventive, but most shops had run out.
Abeysinghe said it was very unlikely that Chikungunya caused the death
on the peninsula of a Tamil woman suffering from viral fever on Friday.
"It is very unlikely to be (due to Chikungunya). There may be a lot of
other disease conditions associated with these people who are reported
to have died due to Chikungunya," he said.
Chikungunya, Swahili for "that which bends up", was first isolated in
the blood of a febrile patient in Tanzania in 1953, the CDC said.