320 killed as Congo ravaged by measles
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AN outbreak of measles in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed almost 320 people and infected more than 20,000, the United Nations has said.
“The toll is heavy and worrying: since January 1, 2015, more than 20,000 cases of measles have been registered in Katanga Province alone” and “almost 320 people have died,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement this week.
“Dozens of others may have succumbed to the illness but they don’t figure on official records,” it said.
The outbreak in mineral-rich Katanga is the worst since 2011, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF — Doctors without Borders), which is on the front line of a vaccination campaign. In 2011, MSF staff immunized 1.5 million children.
In 2013, 9,400 cases of measles were registered in Katanga, compared with more than 12,000 the following year.
OCHA warned that the situation this year “is only getting worse” and that people in some of the affected areas also face malnutrition and cholera.
“In populations with high levels of malnutrition and a lack of adequate health care, up to 10 percent of measles cases result in death,” the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) said on its website.
Aid agencies said that about a third of the affected areas in Katanga are covered by a vaccination program.
The United Nations and medical charities have estimated that more than US$2.4 million are needed to complete vaccinations and provide other essential care, but to contain the disease of “an epidemic nature,” other serious obstacles must be confronted.
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