Swine flu: Africa spared from A/H1N1?
WHO AFRO and African countries on high alert
African countries are not yet affected by swine flu virus, the regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Africa confirmed Thursday that it is getting ready to confront a possible pandemic in the African region.
Dossier: Health file
Friday 1 May 2009, by F.G.
"No cases of swine flu A/H1N1 have been reported in Africa”, a statement from the World Health Organization (WHO) Thursday indicated. The two suspected cases in South Africa are not related to the flu virus. "We have no confirmed cases,” according to Barbara Hogan, the South African Minister of Health, “but we are in a state of high alert," she said on Thursday. South Africa has been on a national alert since last weekend’s warning from the Mexican medical authorities, which was sounded by the WHO. The Southern African country has substantial reserves of Tamiflu, the recommended medication to fight against the swine flu. Several African countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana and Gabon have also taken the necessary measures to address the looming pandemic. "We have set up a crisis management team at the regional office in Brazzaville to control the situation and if necessary respond to a possible swine flu epidemic," said Dr. Luis Sambo, Regional Director for Africa. The WHO’s regional office announced that they had a stockpile of Tamiflu, masks as well as providing technical support to countries in the region to monitor the epidemic. There is no swine flu in South Africa The WHO has raised the alert level from 4 to 5 on a scale of 6 in less than a week. At this stage, the health authorities believe that "a (global) pandemic is imminent” and that there is little time to finalize the organization, dissemination and implementation of safety measures”. Stage 5 is characterized "by human to human spread of the virus occurring in at least two countries within a WHO region. A bulletin issued by WHO on 29 April 2009, identified 148 cases in nine countries (Mexico, United States, Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Spain and Britain). The United States has confirmed 91 human cases. Deaths have been reported. In Mexico, where the epidemic began, 26 cases were identified and the country has recorded seven deaths. The mutant swine flu virus, which originates from pigs, is transmitted from human to human through the respiratory route. This factor has encouraged many scientists, including the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), to call for a new name for the flu. Symptoms include: feverish conditions, headaches, bodily pains and are comparable to those of an ordinary seasonal flu. Regular hand washing (with soap and water) is recommended. Medical authorities have urged all and sundry to be attentive to the appearance of symptoms.
____________________________________________________________________
Africa scrambles to prevent arrival of swine flu Disease could take huge human toll, collapse health system, experts fear
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30588856/
updated 8:50 p.m. ET May 5, 2009
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - African nations are scrambling to prevent swine flu from reaching a continent already struggling with the burden of AIDS and malaria, fearing an outbreak could wreak much more devastation than in North America or Europe. There have been no confirmed cases of the virus in Africa, and medical workers have stepped up surveillance at airports and border posts although funds for such efforts are limited. If worst fears are realized, experts say the disease could collapse weak health systems and take a huge human toll. Some 22 million people are living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, and their weakened immune systems could make them particularly vulnerable to swine flu, especially in rural areas with little access to health facilities. “People living with HIV/AIDS would be much affected by the disease because their immune system is already weak,” said Dr. Sam Zaramba, director of health services in Uganda. The threat of swine flu also comes as southern African countries are heading into winter when even seasonal influenza causes sickness and death worsened by poverty, lack of decent shelter and food and overcrowding. Swine flu has killed 29 people in Mexico and two people in the United States. Although the number of deaths is low, there are fears that if the virus spreads, it could mutate into a more dangerous form and that there could be a second, more lethal wave. ‘Overly hysterical response’And yet, as global attention focuses on swine flu — which has infected more than 1,600 people in more than 20 countries — thousands of Africans die unseen and unnoticed every day of preventable and treatable diseases. “Why isn’t there such an emergency mobilization against diarrheal diseases which kill 2.5 million children a year?” said David Sanders, professor of public health at the University of the Western Cape. “Maybe it (swine fever) is a huge threat but it does seem to have triggered an overly hysterical response,” he said Tuesday of the global mobilization. “One can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a North-South divide expressing itself here,” said Sanders, one of South Africa’s top public health experts. The burden of ill health in Africa is crippling. Nearly 3,000 children die each day of malaria, often for lack of a simple bed net. More than 1,900 people have died and 56,000 people have been sickened since January in a meningitis epidemic that has swept Nigeria, Niger and Chad but gained little international attention. The chaotic health system in Nigeria has prompted concern about whether authorities in Africa’s most populous nation would be able to trace or control swine flu cases. Zimbabwe struggled to cope with easily treatable cholera, resulting in an epidemic that killed more than 4,000 people and sickened 80,000 — in an ominous sign of what might happen in the event of the swine flu virus taking hold. The continent’s richest nation, South Africa, is also beset by health problems, with an estimated 1,000 people dying each day from HIV/AIDS and even more become newly infected with the virus. In the worst-hit South Africa urban sprawls, tuberculosis has reached four times the level classified as an emergency by the World Health Organization. “We are in a country that faces several health emergencies on a regular basis and we have few resources to deal with them,” said Eric Goemaere, a veteran with Medecins Sans Frontieres who cares for people with HIV and TB in a sprawling township near Cape Town. “We just don’t have the luxury to build up stocks of Tamiflu where we have lots of other priorities.” Burkina Faso’s government, for example, has no stock of Tamiflu but has sent a request to the World Health Organization, according to Dr. Ousmane Badolo, head of department of epidemiologic surveillance at the country’s health ministry. Doing their bestDespite a lack of Tamiflu stocks and sophisticated surveillance equipment, African countries are doing their best to keep the continent clear of the virus. In Zambia, authorities stationed medical doctors and epidemiologists at border crossing points and international airports for round-the-clock surveillance and held training sessions for airport staff on how to handle suspected flu carriers. Airports near the famed Victoria Falls and the sprawling Luangwa game sanctuary also have established special screening rooms. Ugandan Health Minister Stephen Malinga said Tuesday that the eastern African nation would oblige all arriving visitors at airports and border posts to fill out forms and would monitor everyone who had visited a country with reported cases of swine fever. “We take their contacts like phone numbers, addresses of places they’re going. We then tell them about swine flu symptoms and what they should do if they get such symptoms,” Malinga told journalists. He said one hospital near the airport and another in the capital Entebbe had been designated for swine flu cases. In Ethiopia, the ministry of health has alerted hospitals and regional health bureaus and set up an examination center and 10-bed quarantine unit at the main international airport, according to spokesman Ahmed Emano. And authorities in South Africa — where two suspected cases tested negative — plan to install a thermal image detection system at the main international airport to check passengers for fever. South Africa is the regional air hub and handles millions of passengers each year. It is expecting an influx of visitors in the coming weeks for sporting events including soccer’s Confederations Cup. South Africa also had been due to host a big international influenza conference next week, according to Lucille Blumberg, deputy director of South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases. She said the symposium had now been canceled — delegates said they couldn’t attend because they were too busy.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
___________________________________________________________________
Africa's disease burden could conceal swine flu cases
Christina Scott, Deodatus Balile and Aimable Twahirwa
29 April 2009 EN
http://www.scidev.net/en/news/africa-s-disease-burden-could-conceal-swine-flu-ca.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_news
Readiness for swine flu varies around Africa. Flickr/johnmuk
Researchers in Africa fear they may not be able to identify swine flu cases swiftly enough to prevent the spread of infection because there are so many diseases around with similar symptoms. Although swine flu has spread from Mexico to several other continents it has not yet been reported in Africa and in some respects the continent is well prepared, say researchers. Rapid response teams are accustomed to reacting to diseases such as meningitis and Rift Valley fever, as well as completely unknown new infections. South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), for example, was widely praised for its prompt quarantining of feverish suspects and quick analysis of a previously unknown acute infection — thought to be a type of viral haemorrhagic fever — which killed four people in October last year. The institute said it will have the specific PCR (polymerase chain reaction) primers required for confirmation of the presence of the virus by the end of the week. ''Many African countries have surveillance for epidemics, and some systems work well,'' says Lucille Blumberg, head of the Johannesburg-based Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit at the NICD, highlighting laboratories run across the continent by the Pasteur Institute. The problem, she says, is identifying swine flu when so many people are sick with similar fever-causing illnesses. ''We are overwhelmed with tuberculosis, pneumonia and malaria, all of which present similar symptoms to swine flu,'' Blumberg told SciDev.Net. Preparedness varies across the continent. Researchers in many countries are in a far stronger position than before to detect swine flu because of training and the upgrading of laboratory equipment in order to combat the threat of avian flu. A notable exception is Zimbabwe, where medical staff have not been able to monitor or contain the current outbreak of cholera due to electricity cuts, petrol shortages and lack of even basic drugs. In many predominantly Muslim countries in West and North Africa, good disease surveillance programmes are in place to combat the risk of communicable diseases such as cholera spreading after the annual pilgrimages of millions to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. But in parts of West Africa there are concerns that countries such as Niger and Nigeria — already hard-hit by meningitis outbreaks this year — lack the necessary surveillance and notification systems. Nigeria's Ministry of Health announced plans last year to establish a Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, modelled on the US body, but it is not yet up and running. In Senegal, health authorities have reactivated an early warning health system put into place in 2006 following the resurgence of the H5N1 avian flu virus, according to the UN news agency IRIN. In East Africa, the Nairobi-based Kenyan Medical Research Institute has provided technical support for investigations of previous outbreaks of diseases in countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, southern Sudan and Uganda. Tanzania's deputy minister for health and social welfare, Aisha Omar Kigoda, told SciDev.Net that the directorate of preventive services was watching for swine flu at airports and other entry points on the mainland and the island of Zanzibar. Blood samples from suspected cases will go to the recently upgraded national influenza centre laboratory at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in Dar es Salaam. Egypt, which has already had several outbreaks of avian flu, is expecting to be hit soon by the virus, given its proximity to Africa, Europe and the Middle East and its importance as both a trade route and a major urban centre. Staff at Cairo's Abbassia Fever Hospital are working closely with the WHO Eastern Mediterranean office and the International Emerging Infections Program. The hospital borders the US Naval Medical Research Unit 3, which specialises in influenza research, and the teams of researchers are already collaborating. In central Africa, even countries without coastlines, ports or major airports have taken immediate precautions. Rwandan health minister Richard Sezibera said today (28 April) that mobile medical teams are screening passengers for flu at all ten border crossings and Kigali airport.Gamaliel Binamungu, director general of the Rwanda Health Communication Centre, says the country has installed a sentinel system to monitor for swine flu outbreaks and will refer suspect cases to the country's five-year-old national reference laboratory.
___________________________________________________________________
The outbreak of influenza A H1N1 killed more than 31 people and more than 1,569 people from around the world affected the virus. It spread in 22 countries around the world, including Spain, Germany, Columbia, Israel, Hong Kong, South Korea and New Zealand.
Africa region is the only one region left that is not affecting the virus influenza A H1N1.
Africa region has experience of disease control following a recent outbreak of cholera. So they are ready to deal with cases of influenza A H1N1.
African countries are ready to deal with influenza A H1N1 and they can lay down preventive measure quickly because they already deal with around 22 million people in Africa region which are living with HIV/AIDS.
By the way, African people might get an affect with influenza A H1N1 easily because their weaken immune system can make them affect the virus.
Due to the weather season in Africa region, the winter is coming and it may lead African people can affect the virus easily because they have to face the sickness, lack of decent shelter and food and overcrowding.
Conclusion: I think Africa region will not face the difficulty of preventing influenza A H1N1, the availability of drugs and prevention strategies because every African country have to face several health emergencies on a regular basis. There are more than 1,000 people dying each day from HIV/AIDS and even more become newly infected with the virus.
These are the picture of A H1N1 virus has spread in each day. And you can see, Africa region is clear from the A H1N1.
