BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) –
Malaria could kill up to 100,000 people in coming months across Indian Ocean communities devastated by the Dec. 26 tsunami if authorities do not quickly move to kill mosquitoes, a health expert warned Thursday.Today: January 13, 2005 at 9:49:51 PST
Health agencies were planning to launch a massive spraying campaign in Indonesia – the hardest-hit country – on Friday to kill mosquitoes that carry the disease, said Richard Allan, director of the Mentor Initiative, the aid group leading the malaria campaign in Indonesia.
“The 150,000 extra deaths from disease that the WHO predicts could occur … is very plausible,” Allan said, referring to a World Health Organization prediction of the number of disease deaths that could follow the tsunami if precautions are not taken. “Up to three quarters of those deaths could be from malaria.”
“The combination of the tsunami and the rains are creating the largest single set of (mosquito) breeding sites that Indonesia has ever seen in its history,” he said.
Tsunami survivors will be highly vulnerable to the mosquito-borne illness, Allan said, warning that 100,000 could die across the tsunami-hit zone that stretches across a dozen countries from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, India and as far away as Africa’s eastern coast.
“They are stressed. They’ve got multiple infections already and their immune systems are weakened,” Allan said. “Any immunity they had is gone.”
WHO said Thursday that seven cases of malaria have been confirmed in the disaster zone in Indonesia, where the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami killed more than 110,000.
The cases are showing up now because the malaria season is just beginning and detection systems have been put in place in the last few days to monitor post-tsunami outbreaks.
Health workers will battle malaria by walking house-to-house fumigating all the neighborhoods of Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province, where the devastation is worst, officials said. The operation kicks off Friday.
Tents in refugee camps around the city also will be sprayed.
In communities along the west coast of Sumatra, where almost all buildings were wiped out, the main defense will be pesticide-impregnated plastic sheeting, which villagers use for shelter.
Cholera, dysentery, typhoid and other waterborne diseases usually tend to spring up in the days immediately after a disaster when clean water is scarce. These diseases, which can be deadly, often come from drinking water contaminated with feces.
“So far, we seem to have largely escaped” the threat of those diseases, Allan said.
But he added, “The risk never goes, but it diminishes.”
Tags: Health, Malaria
