A yellow fever
outbreak in Sudan's Darfur region has killed 107 people in the last six weeks,
the World Health Organisation reported, warning that the disease could spread
all over the country.
The number of
deaths from the outbreak is steadily rising, and Sudan is working on an
emergency vaccination drive, WHO said on Tuesday.
Officials reported
last week that 67 people had died in the outbreak.
There is no
medicinal cure for yellow fever, which is spread by mosquitoes. Doctors treat
the main symptoms - dehydration, fever, bleeding and vomiting - and wait for
the viral infection to pass.
As part of the
emergency response programme, 2.4 million doses of the yellow fever vaccine are
scheduled to arrive in the Sudanese capital next week, Dr. Anshu Banerjee of the
WHO office in Sudan said
More than 350
suspected cases of yellow fever have been reported in Darfur since late
September, and more than 30 per cent of people showing symptoms have died,
according to a WHO statement.
Around 70 per cent
are under the age of 29, according to a statement released on Monday by the
Sudanese Health Ministry and the WHO.
Spreading out
Banerjee warned
that yellow fever cases are "definitely spreading" to new areas of
the remote region of Darfur, where Sudan's government has been battling rebel
groups since 2003.
More than 300,000
people have been killed in the conflict, and health care services are not
available to many residents as a result of the turmoil.
He said that while
no yellow fever cases had been found outside Darfur, the WHO is planning a risk
assessment in the next two weeks on the assumption that all areas in Sudan may
be at risk of infection.
Banerjee said that
Darfur's heavy rainy season this year created additional breeding sites for the
disease-carrying mosquitos.
Sudan's last
outbreak of yellow fever killed 160 people in the South Kordofan region in
2005.
The WHO estimates
that more than 500 million people in 32 countries in Africa are at risk of
yellow fever infection.