Ebola outbreak shuts down malaria-control efforts and routine health care

[Gert van der Hoek]

Ebola outbreak shuts down malaria-control efforts

Public-health experts fear that one epidemic may fuel another in West Africa.

Erika Check Hayden

01 October 2014

As the Ebola death toll spirals into the thousands in West Africa, the outbreak could have a spillover effect on the region?s deadliest disease. The outbreak has virtually shut down malaria control efforts in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, raising fears that cases of the mosquito-borne illness may start rising ? if they haven?t already.

Routine health care has collapsed during the outbreak, because both patients and providers have shunned clinics for fear of infection. As a result, tens of thousands of people could die from treatable causes, says Estrella Lasry, a tropical-medicine specialist for medical charity M?decins Sans Fronti?res (also known as Doctors Without Borders) in New York.

Those include complications of childbirth; trauma and other acute conditions requiring surgery; and causes such as diarrhoeal disease, respiratory viruses and especially malaria. With proper treatment malaria can usually be cured completely, but if left untreated it can develop into a severe form that is often fatal.

More: Nature

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Ebola outbreak shuts down malaria-control efforts and routine health care

Some have speculated that ebola shedding may be higher when there are co-infections like Malaria.

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