Health experts plan ways of countering epidemics

Medical experts from Africa's Great Lakes region are meeting in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, to plan ways of countering epidemics in the region. Outbreaks of malaria, cholera, meningitis, dysentery and, lately, the avian influenza are some of the epidemics under discussion in the four-day workshop that began on Monday. Experts representing Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Tanzania are in attendance. Burundi's health minister, Barnabé Mbonimpa, said the workshop was aimed at improving the ability of health officials to prevent epidemics as well as treat those already infected. "In spite of the epidemiological surveillance set up by our governments to counter those epidemics, they are still showing up in our states, especially in regions like coasts and lakes, including Lake Tanganyika and Lake Kivu," he said. The experts are expected to develop strategies to reduce morbidity and mortality caused by epidemics, Mbonimpa said. He added that increased transboundary collaboration was required between countries to facilitate the undertaking of joint activities to counter epidemics in the Great Lakes. The participants also raised the issue of bird flu, which has broken out in Africa for the first time. Cases of bird flu have been reported in Nigeria. "The epidemic [bird flu] is deadly; its mortality rate on poultry is 100 percent, and it kills in a few hours," Dr Nestor Ndayimirije, of the UN World Health Organization, said. He said it would be a "catastrophe" if the flu became transmittable from man-to-man. The Burundian government has set up a committee, under Ministry of Health, to take charge of the prevention and the fight against bird flu. The committee's members meet every week to assess the risk that the flu poses to the country. "Other strong measures, including the [seeking of] permission to import poultry and other birds, have been taken," Georges Nsengiyumva, the health ministry's director-general, said. However, he said Burundi did not have a laboratory to test poultry suspected of having the flu. The Great Lakes Region is vulnerable to the bird flu epidemic, as several migrating birds come to the region to escape winters in other areas.