After heavy floods
WHO investigates mysterious disease in South Sudan – around 100 dead
According to media reports, the World Health Organization is currently investigating a previously unknown disease in South Sudan that has killed almost 100 people
© abrice COFFRINI / AFP
In South Sudan, the World Health Organization is investigating an outbreak of a previously unknown disease that has so far killed 97 people, according to several media reports. There were previously severe floods in the region.
According to several media reports, a mysterious illness has killed nearly 100 people in South Sudan. Like the US broadcaster ABC reported, 97 people have died of the disease so far. The deaths occurred in Fangak, Jonglei state, in the north of the country. The dead are children up to 14 years of age and the elderly, as the broadcaster quotes the South Sudan’s Ministry of Health. The British too BBC as well as the Russian news agency Tass reported.
Symptoms of the mysterious illness included cough, diarrhea, fever, headache, chest pain, joint pain, loss of appetite, and fatigue. A local official told ABC News that a World Health Organization team that had traveled to Fangak had since left but did not share its findings with local officials. Medicines have been delivered and treatment centers are being set up, the official said.
South Sudan: Floods increase disease risk
In a statement to ABC, Collins Boakye-Agyemang, WHO spokesman for Africa, said the organization began investigating the outbreak in November without providing any further details.
As the BBC reported, there had previously been severe flooding in the region. The region around Fangak was particularly hard hit. Initial tests of samples for cholera, a highly contagious gastrointestinal disease, were negative. “We have decided to send a rapid response team to do a risk assessment and investigation; then they can take samples from the sick people – but for the time being we got the figure that there were 89 deaths,” WHO Sheila Baya of the BBC told the BBC Middle of December.
According to a report in the British newspaper “Independent” South Sudan’s Land Minister, Lam Tungwar Kueigwong, said the floods would increase the risk of diseases such as malaria and child malnutrition as a result of food shortages. In addition, oil has polluted the water, which has also led to the death of farm animals. The organization already shared in November Doctors Without Borders with that the floods increase the risk of diseases such as malaria, cholera and diarrhea.