Som om det ikke var slemt nok i Afrikas nyeste nation, breder en frygtet potentiel dødelig parasit-lidelse sig med alarmerende hast i det fattige land, der kæmper for at overleve økonomisk som politisk.
OLD FANGAK, 3 May 2012 (IRIN): In the dusty courtyard (gård) of a crowded clinic in Old Fangak, in South Sudan’s Jonglei state, throngs of people, some of them under mosquito nets strung between trees, wait to get tested for kala-azar (sort feber), amid the worst continuous outbreak in three decades.
Last year, this clinic – which lacks electricity or running water – handled around half the 11.000 total recorded cases of the parasitical disease, also known as visceral leishmaniasis – se mere på http://patienthaandbogen.dk/infektioner/sygdomme/leishmaniasis-1748.html
Spread by the bite of the sand-fly, it can cause fever, weight loss, enlarged spleen (forstørret milt), rash (udslæt), anaemeia (blodmangel), diarrhoea, fatigue (konstant træthed) and, left untreated, death.
Conflict and poverty facilitate its spread. Kala-azar used to strike in relatively brief outbreaks every 7 to 10 years. But an outbreak that began in 2009 has yet to let up, affecting some 25.000 people, mostly in Jonglei and Upper Nile states.
“It is because of the current situation in South Sudan, where the humanitarian situation is deteriorating (forværret),” said Abdi Nasir, head of communicable (smitsomme) diseases for the UN World Health Organisation (WHO).
“There is food insecurity, there is displacement, many factors. We are expecting that the outbreak may continue” and affect another 11.000 people in 2012, he said.
In the absence of passable roads to Old Fangak, most patients arrive by boat, according to community health worker George Kam Kong.
“But if you do not have money, then you cannot reach the centre for treatment. So, so many people die at home. Which is why we are asking our government, our NGOs, for more medicines, more supplies, and to bring the road to here,” he added.
In 2011, the mortality rate for treated cases was under three percent. The most effective drug, Ambazom, costs around 500-600 US dolllar per patient without factoring in expensive transportation.
WHO is rushing to preposition (anbringe i tide) drugs in places such as Old Fangak before rains render the town’s runway unusable.
Very deadly
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95407/SOUTH-SUDAN-Losing-the-war-against-kala-azar
