Travel Health Service Year 2005

Current Travel Health News

Travel Health News

Travel Health News Digest (22 May 2005)

Yemen: Poliomyelitis

In Yemen, there were 83 confirmed cases of poliomyelitis and 411 suspected cases.  The affected provinces included Hodeidah, Sana, Taiz, Hadramawt and Amran.

 
Yemen was polio-free since 1996 and this latest outbreak was brought in from Africa.  Vaccination campaign would be done in order to control the outbreak.
 
(Source: ProMED-mail 18 May 2005)

 

Fiji: typhoid fever

Three more typhoid cases had been reported in the Western and Northern divisions of Fiji. The number rose to 42 cases since January this year in the country.  Most of those confirmed with typhoid had been successfully treated while others were still being monitored.

 
(Source: ASEAN Disease Surveillance 17 May 2005)

 

Democratic Republic of Congo: Ebola hemorrhagic fever [update]

Since late April this year, Ebola hemorrhagic fever had claimed 9 lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  There were also 11 suspected cases.  Currently, it was not a large outbreak and the local authorities were controlling it effectively.

 (Source: ProMED 21 May 2005)

 

Angola: Marburg hemorrhagic fever [update-8]

As of 17 May, 337 cases of Marburg hemorrhagic fever had been reported in Angola including 311 deaths. The majority of cases had occurred in Uige Province.  No cases had been reported outside Uige for the past 5 weeks.
 
(Source: WHO 18 May 2005)

 

India: Meningococcal disease [update]

meningococcal disease had been reported in Delhi, India, with 26 deaths.  The majority of cases and all deaths had occurred in young adult population between 16-30 years of age.  Neisseria meningitidis serogroup A was detected in cerebrospinal fluid obtained from 18 cases.  Most of the reported cases were from Old Delhi and Shahdara.

 

 
(Source: WHO 17 May 2005)

 

India: Measles

Nearly 1500 cases of measles among children, including 72 deaths, were detected in the past two months in Uttar Pradesh state, India.  The outbreak was quite widespread and not confined to any particular area in the state.
 
(Source: ASEAN Disease Surveillance 17 May 2005)

 

Philippines: Dengue fever

Health officials of the Cotabato Town of the Philippines expressed alarm over the abrupt increase of dengue fever cases in the province.  A total of 159 cases were reported in South Cotabato last week, mostly affecting children.  Increase of dengue cases in the province was noted every three years.

 
(Source: ASEAN Diseases Surveillance 19 May 2005)

 

Asia: Avian influenza [update-37]

Since January 2004, when human cases of H5N1 avian influenza were first reported in the current outbreak, 97 cases and 53 deaths had been reported in Viet Nam, Thailand and Cambodia.  Viet Nam, with 76 cases and 37 deaths, had been the most severely affected country, followed by Thailand, with 17 cases and 12 deaths, and Cambodia, with 4 cases and 4 deaths.

 
According to a recent study, human H5N1 infections occurring in northern Viet Nam recently appeared to differ in some respects from previous cases.  These included an increase in the number of case clusters and fewer fatal cases.
 
In Indonesia, researchers had found a strain of bird flu in pigs on the densely populated island of Java, raising fears that the virus could more easily spread to humans.
 
(Source: World Health Organization 19 May 2005, ProMED-mail 14, 17, 19 May 2005)