Current Travel Health News

In Djibouti, an outbreak of Cholera affecting 76 people including 5 deaths was reported in Tadjourah region in the beginning of May.

 

The health official of Egypt had announced a new human case of H5N1 Avian Influenza. The case was a 10-year-old girl from Qena of southern Egypt. She had contact history with backyard poultry and fell ill on 1 June. She was hospitalised on 7 June, and died on 9 June. Of the 35 cases confirmed to date in Egypt, 15 had been fatal.

 

A 5-year-old boy has died and more than 100 people were undergoing treatment in various hospitals following an outbreak of Cholera in Chennai of India, official sources said. Besides, as many as 78 cases of waterborne diseases have been reported in New Delhi.

 

The Ministry of Health of Indonesia reported a fatal case of human infection of H5N1 Avian Influenza. The victim was a 16-year-old female from Central Java province. She developed symptoms on 21 May and died on 29 May. Initial investigation indicated she had exposure to dead poultry. To date, there have been 99 confirmed cases of human infection of Avian Influenza in the country, of whom 79 were fatal.

 

Between 1 January and 27 May, a total of 1 121 Measles cases from 3 000 paediatric sentinels had been reported nationwide in Japan, 657 cases of them (59 percent) were reported from southern Kanto area including Saitama, Tokyo and Chiba. Another 387 adult cases in 15 years old and older have been reported from 450 hospital sentinels during the same period, 352 of them (91 percent) were under 35.

 

Different areas in Kenya were affected by outbreaks of Cholera. In Busia district of Western Province, 9 people have died of Cholera. The most affected area was Port-Victoria of that district. In Siaya district of Nyanza Province, a total of 50 cases of Cholera with at least 7 deaths were recorded in the last month. In North Eastern Province, there were 3 recent deaths. Two of them died in the Dadaab refugee camps in Garissa District, while the remaining one was a resident of Liboi division near the Kenya-Somalia border.

 

(Source: ProMED-mail 4 June 2007)

Up to 3 June this year, Bukidnon province of the Philippines has registered 212 Dengue Fever cases, which was 152 percent higher than the figure recorded in the same period last year, and has already reached the alert threshold. Slight increases of Dengue Fever cases were also observed in Misamis Oriental, Lanao del Norte, and Camiguin provinces.

 

Health officials in South Cotabato of the Philippines have quarantined an entire village in Lake Sebu town to stop the spread of Malaria when 80 cases of Malaria were noted during a recent blood-smearing test. Some of the wells that residents mainly rely on for their drinking water were breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

 

(Source: ProMED-mail 5 June 2007)

A total of 259 cases of Dengue Fever were reported last week in Singapore. It was the highest number of cases this year. Health officials worried that an epidemic might be on its way.

 

(Source: ProMED-mail 6 June 2007)

In the Lower Jubba provincial settlement in southern Somalia, Cholera was spreading among families, especially in children and older people, who escaped from fighting in Mogadishu, the capital.

 

An outbreak of Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever in Turkey has sickened 133 people and killed 7 of them so far this year. The number of cases from January to May this year was 13 percent higher than that in the same period last year. Control measures were performed to reduce the tick population in the Black Sea and Central Anatolia regions, where more than 90 percent of the cases were reported.

(Source: ProMED-mail 10 June 2007)

Health officials in north Wales of United Kingdom said that the outbreak of H7N2 low pathogenic Avian Influenza which affected 17 people has ended. The illnesses of the affected were not serious.

 

[Editor's Note: H7N2 is a low pathogenic strain of Avian Flu. Almost all human cases of Avian Influenza (H7N2) to date were mild.]

(Source: ProMED-mail 6 June 2007)

The health officials of New Mexico of USA confirmed the second and third human cases of Plague in the state this year. The second case was a 58-year-old woman from Torrance County who developed bubonic plague which subsequently progressed to pneumonic plague. She was hospitalised and her condition was critical. The third case was a 3-year old boy from Bernalillo County who developed bubonic plague. He was the first case died of the disease in 2007.

 

(Source: ProMED-mail 7 and 8 June 2007)