- JOHANNESBURG - Endemic poverty
and over-population, combined with the effect of HIV and Aids make Africa
a likely candidate for a Sars epidemic, a medical expert said on Wednesday
following the death of the continent's first probable victim of the respiratory
illness.
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- Andrew Jamieson, medical director of the South African
Airways - Netcare Travellers' Clinic, said medical staff on the continent
were concerned because factors which would assist the rapid spread of Sars
are widespread in Africa.
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- "I would say that the socio-economic conditions,
such as poverty and overcrowding especially in densely populated urban
areas, combined with HIV/Aids would make the possibility of a SARS epidemic
very likely, should it get a foothold on the continent," Jamieson
said.
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- "Especially with Aids, but also with other illnesses,
we just don't know how it will behave - it could even become more aggressive,"
he said.
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- Continent's first probable Sars victim dies
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- Africa's first probable Sars victim, a 62-year-old man
earlier identified as a Chinese South African, died in a Pretoria hospital
Tuesday night, but health officials said his death was the result of cardiac
arrest and unrelated to the virus.
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- But said Jamieson: "One does wonder whether he would
have died if he did not have Sars."
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- Factors which could worsen any outbreak of Sars in Africa
include a lack of sanitation in many poor areas and a shortage of hospitals
with the correct intensive care unit facilities, Jamieson said.
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- "It seems that the disease has been associated with
sewage. We would have to reduce the risk of water-borne disease, but it
will be difficult in many areas," he added.
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- Sars has killed at least 333 people worldwide, including
148 in mainland China and 150 in Hong Kong, since it first broke out in
China in November. The disease has infected about 5 400 people around
the globe.
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- While it is still rampant in China, where nearly 10 000
people have been quarantined in Beijing alone, it appears to be levelling
off elsewhere, and the United States may have largely escaped the deadly
virus.
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- African hospitals already under strain
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- Hospitals and medical staff in Africa are already under
enormous strain as a result of malaria, Aids, tuberculosis and cholera,
but many countries have put hospitals on stand-by and set up isolation
wards for any suspected case of Sars, for which there is neither a cure
nor a preventive vaccine.
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- African governments are screening incoming travellers,
putting hospitals on stand-by and setting up isolation wards, and urging
their citizens to defer travel to Asia.
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- Even a country like South Africa, which has fairly modern
medical facilities in its urban centres, would be put under severe strain
if Sars were to hit the country, Jamieson said.
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- Kenya Airways has suspended planned maiden flights to
Bangkok and Hong Kong scheduled to start on June 1, South African Airways
is reducing flights to Hong Kong from five to four a week in May and June,
and Mauritius, a tiny island nation with a large Asian community, suspended
its two weekly flights to Hong Kong on April 1.
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- Jamieson said people who were most at risk were those
who had travelled to or were coming from high-risk Sars areas and had been
in close contact with potential carriers.
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- http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Sars/0,,2-10-1488_1353924,00.html
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