Chronic malnutrition worsens outbreak of deadly parasitic illness, MSF warns
JUBA, Sudan (AlertNet) – South Sudan is battling with the worst epidemic of the deadly kala azar disease in eight years, with tens of hundreds of people infected, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres has warned.
If untreated, the parasitic disease, spread by the bite of an infected sandfly, is fatal in almost 100 percent of cases. By the end of November, MSF had treated 2,355 south Sudanese for the disease.
"With kala azar, it’s always a race against time to save lives," MSF medical coordinator Elin Jones said in a statement released on Thursday.
"This epidemic…compounds the already dire medical humanitarian situation facing the population."
By the end of October, more than 9,330 cases in south Sudan had been reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) this year. Most of these were children.
It is impossible to know the death toll as 75 percent of South Sudanese do not have access to health care facilities following decades of civil war, according to MSF. – I’m afraid I don’t see this info in the press release. However, it is likely that there have been many unreported deaths.
Almost 5 percent of those who received treatment at medical facilities later died, according to the WHO.
The symptoms of kala azar include fever, weight loss, an enlarged spleen, anaemia, diarrhoea and fatigue. The disease suppresses the immune system, leaving victims vulnerable to other infections like malaria, which is hyper-endemic in South Sudan.
Many people in south Sudan are already weakened by malnutrition. Between 20 and 50 per cent of the population require food aid each year.
Following drought and conflict in 2009, the United Nations provided food aid to 2.5 million of south Sudan’s 8.3 million people in 2010.
A 2005 peace deal brought an end to war in south Sudan but the fledging government lacks finances, clinics, medical staff and medicines to care for its impoverished people.
At least 80 percent of medical services are provided by aid agencies, which are stretched to the limit. Africa’s biggest country has few all-weather roads to deliver services to remote rural areas.
Treatment for kala azar involves daily injections for one month and requires people to stay near health facilities for observation.
The current epidemic was first detected in September 2009 and is worst in Jonglei and Upper Nile states near the Ethiopian border.
MSF said it treated 2,355 cases in November 2010, an eight-fold increase on November 2009.
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