Million risk death from yellow fever

Millions of Guineans risk dying from yellow fever unless a massive effort is made to deliver vaccines, Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Tuesday. The medical charity said 493 cases of the disease had been identified in the districts of Mamou, Labbé and Kankan, including the towns of Kindia (83 km northeast of Conakry) and of Dubreka, 30 km northeast of the capital. It said the global mortality rate was around 40 percent, but could be as high as 80 percent. Although MSF and Guinean medical teams are vaccinating up to 15,000 people per day, MSF said, “These actions are simply not enough.” Even if all worldwide stocks of yellow fever vaccine were taken into account, the current campaign would still require an additional 1.5 million doses of vaccine for the 2.5 million people - including the entire 1.5 million people of Conakry - at risk, according to MSF. “This vaccine deficit may have grave consequences, especially during the next rainy season in May, when conditions become favourable for yellow-fever carrying mosquitoes to spread the disease. All people at risk must, therefore, be vaccinated by that time,” MSF said. MSF said 35 African countries, as well as certain areas of South America, were regarded as being at risk of yellow fever. Two recent epidemics in Nigeria and in Bolivia, it said, “should have raised awareness among the international community” as to the need for vaccine stocks. It called on the international community “to develop vaccine stocks to allow for rapid respond to outbreaks”.