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ProMED-EAFR:East Africa
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Published Date
2009-09-06 17:20:38
Subject
PRO/EAFR> Health consequences of flooding - West Africa: alert
Archive Number
20090906.201910
Full Text
HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF FLOODING - WEST AFRICA: ALERT
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Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2009
Source: BBC News [abridged, edited]
Heavy flooding has now affected some 350 000 people across West
Africa, killing at least 32 in Ghana and Burkina Faso, UN officials
say. More than 150 000 people in Burkina Faso have fled their homes,
mainly in the capital Ouagadougou. A UN spokeswoman said the amount
of rain that fell in Ouagadougou on one day this week was equal to a
quarter of the whole country's annual rainfall.
Neighbouring countries affected include Benin, Guinea, Niger and
Senegal. At least 7 people are known to have died in Burkina Faso,
where the capital has seen the heaviest rains in 90 years. The
authorities were forced to open the main gate of a hydroelectric dam
in the Volta River basin near the Ghana border to prevent further
flooding. "Cultivated land on the reservoir's shores and further
upstream will be flooded. We warn riverside residents to stay away
from the shores," Venance Bouda, the official in charge of
hydroelectric power, told the Associated Press news agency.
In Ghana, at least 25 people have already died in flooding-related
incidents, officials say. The torrential rains have also hit other
countries in the region. In Senegal, 30 000 homes were flooded, while
in Guinea, 20 000 people are affected. Our reporter says similar
floods in 2007 killed 300 people.
--
Communicated by:
Shamsudeen Fagbo
[We are grateful to Shamsudeen Fagbo, who forwarded the above item to
ProMED-mail with his accompanying comment: "This may be post worthy;
it may warn of potential Rift Valley fever (RVF) outbreaks in the
nearest future in these areas." His comment seems to be fully justified.
Indeed, floods in this region are cause for alertness by both animal
health and public health authorities, since RVF is known to have
become endemic in the region, particularly in Senegal and in the
adjacent parts of Mauritania. The most striking effect of RVF in
animals are mass abortions, affecting sheep, goats and cattle. In
2003, the awareness of the Senegalese veterinary authorities led to
the detection of RVF in animals prior to the reporting of human cases.
RVF usually occurs in epizootics in Africa, which may involve several
countries in a region at one and the same time. These follow the
periodic cycles of exceptionally heavy rain, which may occur very
rarely in semi-arid zones (25-35 year cycles), or more frequently
(5-15 year cycles) in higher rainfall savannah grasslands. Low level
undetectable RVF activity may take place in inter-epizootic periods.
RVF should be suspected when unusually heavy rains are followed by
the occurrence of abortions together with fatal disease marked by
necrosis and haemorrhages in the liver that particularly affect
newborn lambs, kids and calves, concurrent with the occurrence of an
influenza-like illness in farm workers and people handling raw meat.
RVF virus may be isolated from serum and blood collected in an
anticoagulant during the febrile stage of the disease, from liver,
spleen and brain of animals that have died, or from aborted fetuses.
Preventative measures to protect workers from infection should be
employed when there are suspicions that RVF virus-infected meat and
tissue samples are to be handled.
RVF was initially recorded in southwest Mauritania and bordering
north Senegal in 1987, following the opening of Diama Dam at the
mouth of the Senegal River. The dam project created additional
breeding grounds for mosquitoes carrying the disease and initially
resulted in more than 200 human deaths from RVF. Senegal suffered
outbreaks, though on a more limited scale, in 1994, 1999, 2002 and
2003. - Mod.AS]
[see also:
2003
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Rift Valley fever, sheep, goat - Senegal: OIE 20031122.2901
2002
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Rift Valley fever, sheep, goat - Senegal: OIE (02) 20021226.6130
Rift Valley fever, sheep and goat - Senegal: OIE 20021221.6107
Rift Valley fever, human - Mauritania (Gorgol) 20021129.5927
Rift Valley fever, humans - Chad: Aug 2001 20020412.3941
2001
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Rift valley fever, livestock - Mali 20010409.0698
1999
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Rift valley fever - Mauritania (04) 19990101.0001
1998
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Rift valley fever - Mauritania (03) 19981114.2197]
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