138220 vaccinators in Nigeria / Did Vaccines give fatal Marburg to Angolan Kids?

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138220 vaccinators in Nigeria/Did Vaccines give fatal Marburg

to Angolan Kids?

 

http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1686567,00.html

 

'Wrong to reject the vaccine'

 

07/04/2005 14:07 - (SA)

 

 

Kano - A Nigerian state governor has threatened to force nervous Muslim

families to accept the country's latest four-day drive to immunise

children

against the crippling virus polio, officials said on Thursday.

 

Governor Adamu Aliero of Kebbi State " said the government would not

hesitate to use force if necessary to ensure all children below the age of

five are immunised against polio, " said state press office official Buhari

Sa'id.

 

Spekaing by telephone from Kebbi, Sa'id confirmed that a radio report of a

meeting between Aliero and local Muslim dignitaries, at which the governor

warned them not to impose the round of vaccination, was accurate.

 

" Even if we have to use force to ensure that children are immunised, we

will do so in the interest of all, " Aliero said, according to the report.

 

" The holy Koran accepts the use of force to implement programmes that are

in the interest of the majority and it is wrong for anybody to reject the

administration of the vaccine, " he warned.

 

Nigeria is the centre of the world's biggest and fastest growing outbreak

of polio - a disease which United Nations health agencies hope to

eradicate

by the end of the year - and the rural northern state of Kebbi is

particularly afflicted.

 

Last year radical imams from northern Nigeria thwarted initial attempts at

mass vaccination by spreading spurious claims that the vaccine had been

laced with dangerous chemicals by the United States government in a bid to

sterilise Muslims.

 

The UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) and Children's Fund (UNICEF) have

now won the approval and support of regional leaders, however, and the

vaccination programme has now gone through several fairly successful

stages.

 

The next push begins on Saturday when 138 220 vaccinators will spread out

across Africa's most populous country for four days in a bid to protect

every child under five from a disease that could leave them permanently

disabled. - AFP

 

______

 

Did Vaccinations Give Fatal

Marburg To Angolan Kids?

 

From Patricia Doyle, PhD

dr_p_doyle

4-2-5

 

[1] The World Health Organization (WHO) says Marburg Virus has

sickened 140 people in Angola and killed 132, most of them young

children. International health organizations are rushing personnel and

equipment to the war-ravaged country to stem the epidemic. Still, WHO

experts told National Public Radio (NPR)'s Richard Knox that they

expect the Marburg toll to get much larger.

 

Marburg hemorrhagic fever isn't as much feared as its cousin Ebola

hemorrhagic fever. But in fact, they're hard to tell apart. [Clinically

they are associated with similar disease symptoms, but the 2 viruses

do not

cross-react antigenically and are easily distinguishable by serology and

RT-PCR assay. - Mod.CP]. In both cases, victims bleed to death, often

from every orifice and every organ. Few infections are as deadly.

That's why the WHO, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

Health Canada and the medical aid group MSF (Medecins sans Frontieres)

are rushing to Angola.

 

Dr. Mike Ryan is managing WHO's response from Geneva. He said that:

" The cases counted so far don't include victims who died outside

hospitals. Some WHO experts expect a doubling of the current toll.

That would make this Angolan outbreak the largest Marburg epidemic

ever...and larger than almost any Ebola [hemorrhagic fever] outbreak.

International workers and

protective gear are just arriving. " So Ryan said also that it will take

time to show results. " We're going to see further waves. Even with the

best

of interventions, you're going to see at least 2 waves of transmission

before you start to gain control of the problem. "

 

So far most Marburg cases have been in a northern province called

Uige. But there are reports of cases across Angola's border with the

Democratic

Republic of Congo. Dr. Pierre Formenty, the WHO's top Marburg expert,

is struck by how widely the virus has already spread. Dr. Formenty stated

that: " It is the 1st time we have geographically speaking so large an

outbreak of Marburg fever. We have cases not just in Uige city itself but

in different cities around Uige, up to 20 to 40 kilometres away. The

outbreak probably started last October [2004]. Many people got infected in

hospitals. " Dr. Formenty thinks sloppy injection practices explain why

most

victims are below age 5. Doctors often give medicine to young children by

injection rather than by mouth.

 

The biggest fear is that Marburg will begin spreading from person to

person

in Angolan cities. There have been cases in the provincial capital of

Uige,

a city of 200 000. And 3 people have died in Luanda, a coastal city of

more

than three million that is Angola's capital. Luanda has several other

possible cases. But Dr. Formenty said the known and suspected victims

came from Uige -- and didn't contract Marburg fever in Luanda.

Formenty stated that: " Today we have no evidence of transmission

within Luanda. We have evidence of people who have escaped Uige to die

in Luanda, yes. ...but we have no secondary transmission in Luanda or

in any other city. Finding and isolating Marburg cases in a big city

is hard enough. Tracing people they might have infected is daunting.

That's why Angolan and WHO officials are trying to dampen panic, which

could cause people to flee from Uige to the capital...and bring the

virus with them. "

 

Dr. Christa Kitz, who is coordinating the work of Medicins sans Frontieres

in Luanda, stated that: " In Luanda it's still a little bit calm but we are

hearing from Uige province that health-care workers are fleeing hospitals,

that they are not returning to work, and also that the population is

trying

to run away from the area. In Luanda city there is no real panic reaction

yet but the fear grows every day. "

_____

 

[2]

Fri 1 Apr 2005

ProMED-mail <promed

Source: Australia Broadcasting Corporation, Fri 1 Apr 2005

http://www.abc.net.au

 

Suspected Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever Cases Hospitalized in Italy

 

Italian hospital staff have put 9 patients in isolation, suspected of

contact with the Marburg virus, an Ebola-like [disease] which has broken

out in Angola, a World Health Organisation spokesperson has said.

 

" 9 people who were in contact with an ill person were isolated in an

Italian hospital, " Ms Chaib said, without giving details of in which town

or what nationality the possible victims were, or if they were ill.

 

Last week, an Italian paediatrician died of haemorrhagic fever in Angola,

according to Medici con Africa, the relief organization for which she

worked. The WHO was unable to say whether the 9 patients in Italy had

been in touch with this woman.

 

The WHO ruled out 2 other suspected cases reported in Portugal earlier

this week following medical tests.

 

ProMED-mail

promed

 

 

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