Current Travel Health News

Cholera outbreaks have been reported in multiple municipalities and districts in Angola.  In the municipality of Tombwa near Namibe, 16 cases have been registered between 12 to 15 November. In Caimbambo municipality of Benguela Province, 32 cases have been reported. In the province of Cunene, about 300 cases have been reported in Kwanhama, Kahama and Cuvelai districts. In Huila, a total of 1891 cases and 122 death have been reported since April 2006.

 

An outbreak of Malaria affecting 13 victims with another 29 suspected cases was reported in the province of Limon in Costa Rica. The parasite found in this outbreak was Plasmodium Falciparum which was the most dangerous strain but rare in Costa Rica.

 

One case of Poliomyelitis was notified last week in northern Cameroon. The infected child had recently arrived in Cameroon with his family from Nigeria and it was unclear where he acquired the infection.

 

(Source: ProMED-mail 13 November 2006)

A wild duck shot by a hunter in a coastal area of the Greece’s central prefecture of Fthiotida was found to contain H5 Avian Influenza virus. Samples from the duck would be sent to the European Union Reference Laboratory for Avian Influenza in England for further confirmation.

The Centre for Health Protection of the Department of Health of Hong Kong was investigating an imported case of Dengue Fever. The patient was a 29-year-old woman. She travelled to India on 24 October and developed symptoms of fever, headache, eye pain and rash on 8 November during the travel. She was in stable condition and did not required hospitalisation.

 

There have been a total of 29 Dengue Fever cases so far this year. All of them were classified as imported cases.

 

As of 8 November, a total of 490 cases of Poliomyelitis have been confirmed in India, more than 10 times the number of case last year. Among which, 438 cases were reported from Uttar Pradesh state which was the most populous state of the country. The outbreak started in Moradabad and JP Nagar districts in western Uttar Pradesh. Federal health workers were due to vaccinate more than 120 million children nationwide over the next few days.

 

The Ministry of Health in Indonesia has confirmed two additional cases of human infection with the H5N1 Avian Influenza virus. The first case was a 35-year-old female from Tangerang in Banten Province. She developed symptoms on 7 November and remained hospitalised since 10 November. The Ministry was investigation her source of exposure. The second case occurred in a 30-month-old male from Karawang in West Java Province. He developed symptoms on 5 November, and died on 13 November. Chickens were found dead near his home in the days prior to symptom onset. Of the 74 cases confirmed to date in Indonesia, 56 have been fatal.

 

The total number of confirmed Dengue Fever cases has raised to 1 080 across Sindh of Pakistan during last few months, including 1064 in Karachi.

 

In the Philippines, an outbreak of Dengue Fever with more than 10 confirmed case have been reported in the Southville Housing Project in Cabuyao of Laguna province. Among these, 3 cases have been fatal.

 

(Source: ProMED-mail 15 November 2006)

As of 11 November, 209 cases of Dengue Fever have been recorded in Makkah and Jeddah of Saudi Arabia. Lack of a sewage system and stagnant water in the city attributed to the rapid spread of the disease in Jeddah.

 

A cluster of 6 imported case Chikungunya Fever has been recently reported in Bordeau area of France. These cases travelled in Dakar, Thies, Kaolack, Louga and the Petite Cote area of Senegal from August to November 2006.

 

A total of 575 people have been infected with Dengue Fever in Taiwan since the beginning of the summer and resulted in 2 deaths among the 14 who contracted Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever. Most of the cases have been concentrated in southern Taiwan, with 404 patients in Kaohsiung City and 156 in Kaohsiung County. The others came from Pingdong County (9 cases), Tainan County (2 cases), Tainan City (2 cases), Taipei County (1 case), and Keelung City (1).

 

In Tanzania, the Cholera outbreak in Dar es Salaam has killed 5 people and affected 820 others in the past few weeks. In Zanzibar, at least 16 people have been hospitalised following an outbreak of dysentery and diarrhoea in the island’s capital of Stone Town.

 

In Uganda, 9 districts have been hit by an outbreak of Cholera. The affected districts were Adjumani, , Arua, Nebbi, Koboko, Moyo and Yumbe in northwestern region, Kasese and Bundibugyo in western and the capital Kampala in the central. The outbreak in Kampala has spread to the city suburbs of Katwe, Mengo-Kisenyi, Namuwongo, Luzira, Katanga, Kalerwe and Kawempe. Local media reported that the epidemic had killed 7 residents and left over 176 others hospitalised in Arua district since 12 July.

 

A total of 37 Dengue Fever related death have been reported in Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam so far this year, a 30% rise over the same period last year. Over the past 4 weeks, some 4 000 local people in the Delta have suffered from Dengue Fever. An Giang was the hardest-hit province, with over 800 cases and 9 fatalities reported.