YEMEN: Dengue fever kills seven

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

SANA, 9 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - At least 124 people have been infected with dengue fever in southern Yemen and seven have died from the disease in Hudaidah province, 226 km southwest of the capital Sana, the health ministry said.

Dengue fever, which can be treated, is an infectious disease carried by mosquitoes and is found mostly during and shortly after the rainy season in tropical and subtropical areas.

Deputy Minister of Public Health Dr Majed al-Junaid said more help was needed in controlling the outbreak. "We are still struggling to contain this disease given our limited resources," he told IRIN in Sana.

The Ministry of Public Health submitted a report this week to the cabinet calling for more action to prevent the outbreak from becoming an epidemic. The report followed a comprehensive investigation at all hospitals in the province in the period up to 18 February.

Since dengue fever was first detected on 16 December in the small city of Zabid in Hudaidah, 124 cases of infection have been reported. By mid-January seven people in the city had died of the disease, the ministry report said.

But doctors fear the death toll could rise as the disease can spread quickly. The Yemeni government says it is on full alert to deal with the outbreak but more help is needed.

More than 50 medically equipped cars with over 250 technicians have been dispatched in one of largest medical campaigns in the country's history. It includes wiping out mosquitoes, filling swamps where they breed and disinfecting areas where mosquitoes live to stop transmission of the disease, official sources confirmed.

The government report calls for additional funding of at least US $1.5 million to control the epidemic.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in Sana has offered technical assistance to the government. WHO representative in Yemen, Dr Hashim Elzein Elmousaad, told IRIN that according to different tests and investigations in Sana and Cairo, Egypt, cases have appeared all over Hudaidah and are confirmed to be dengue fever type 3.

Dengue fever can be caused by any one of four types of the dengue virus: DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3, and DEN-4. A person can be infected by at least two, if not all four types at different times during a life span, but only once by the same type.

"Dengue fever is not uncommon for Yemen, type 1 was discovered for the first time in some districts of Shabwa province (458 km southeast of Sana) in July 2002, then appeared again in 2003 in Ataq city, the capital of Shabwa province," Elmousaad said.

"The results from the laboratories showed that people from whom blood was collected in Hudaidah and Zabid, as well as those from Shabwa, were exposed before to dengue fever before 2002," he explained.

The danger of dengue fever depends on its type the doctor explained: "We have to differentiate between dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever. Dengue fever is usually without bleeding, but dengue hemorrhagic fever is with hemorrhaging and people can bleed from the gums, the intestines, stomach or from the nose, as well as other symptoms," Elmousaad said.

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