A state of alert has been issued in Saudi Arabia in an attempt
to stop the spread of Rift Valley fever, which first struck the
country on September 11th.
The
outbreak of the illness is the first documented outside of Africa.
The
disease, which is spread from mosquitoes to livestock and to humans,
has killed at least 28 people and infected 129 others in the south
of the kingdom near the border with Yemen. More than 90 victims
in Yemen have died.
Symptoms of
Rift Valley fever include hemorrhagic fever, encephalitis and
severe eye infections.
Saudi's official
SPA news agency reported on Sunday that King Fahd has ordered
the destruction of all livestock carrying or suspected of carrying
the deadly illness.
Last week,
all livestock imports from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia,
Sudan and Yemen, all of which are located along the Red Sea, were
suspended. The official news agency SABA in the neighboring country
of Yemen also announced a ban on imports of livestock from Africa
last Saturday.
Experts from
the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control arrived in Yemen on Sunday to help authorities in the
fight against the spread of the disease.
World Health
Organization disease surveillance and response expert Mike Ryan
stressed that the outbreak demonstrates how diseases traditionally
thought of as restricted by geography can be spread through imported
animals, air travel and unusual weather conditions. He said that
there was suspicion regarding infected cattle that may have been
imported from the Horn of Africa into Yemen.
Ryan reported
that the 1997-1998 flooding in Kenya and Somalia triggered by
El Niño weather pattern caused both humans as well as herds
of animals to group together, providing the ideal circumstances
for an epidemic.
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