TANZANIA: Health authorities issue Ebola alert
Pastor Dale Morgan
TANZANIA: Health authorities issue Ebola alert*
19 Sep 2007 14:35:43 GMT
Source: IRIN
DAR ES SALAAM, 19 September 2007 (IRIN) - Tanzanian health authorities
have cautioned people living in regions neighbouring the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) following the outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic
fever in the central African country.
Western Tanzanian regions bordering DRC include Mbeya, Rukwa, Kigoma and
Kagera.
"All regional medical officers have been instructed to keep on alert
because people from eastern parts of DRC enter into Tanzania through the
four regions," Wilson Mukama, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of
Health and Social Welfare, said in a statement.
Meanwhile the UN World Health Organization (WHO) clarified that while
the latest figures released by various sources mention 375 cases and 167
deaths in western Kasai Province of DRC, the cause of death cannot be
confirmed yet.
Of all of these cases and deaths, only one confirmed case of Shigella
and less than 10 of Ebola have been registered.
"Everything else still remains to be investigated," Gregory Hartl, WHO
communications advisor, said from Geneva. WHO's team in the area and its
operations, he added, were growing by the day. "WHO is coordinating the
international response, at the behest of the DRC ministry of health."
Approximately 1,850 cases, with over 1,200 deaths, have been documented
since the Ebola virus was first identified in the western equatorial
province of Sudan, and in a nearby region of DRC in 1976, after
significant epidemics in Yambuku, northern DRC and Nzara in southern Sudan.
Ebola, a haemorrhagic illness, which causes death in 50-90 percent of
cases, is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, secretions,
organs or other bodily fluids of infected persons.
It is characterised by the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness,
muscle pain, headache and sore throat. This is often followed by
vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and in
some cases, both internal and external bleeding.