Flu Kills 479 in Madagascar

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, August 21, 2002

Flu Kills 479 in Madagascar

The epidemic of flu has spread from the southeast of Madagascar into the northern region, claiming at least 479 lives, the Madagascar authorities announced Tuesday.

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The epidemic of flu has spread from the southeast of Madagascar into the northern region, claiming at least 479 lives, the Madagascar authorities announced Tuesday.

"After having caused 471 deaths among 13,000 cases of infectionin the southeast, the epidemic now rampages in two communities in the northeast, notably in the region of Maevatanana (350 kilometers northwest of Antananarivo) where 975 cases have been registered since August 12," announced the Madagascar Ministry of Health.

The influenza broke up two months ago in the province of Fianarantsoa in southeastern highlands of the Indian Ocean island country.

"A team of our ministry composed of five doctors and one nurse is dispatched into the area (in the northeast) on Monday," said the ministry in a statement.

"The flu itself does not kill if the patient is taken care of, but the isolation from health centers and the insufficiency and absence of medical personnel cause the death," it added.

"In Maevatanana, there was no doctor in the health centers close to the two communities, which delayed the treatment and caused the deaths of some of the patients," it said.

A team of the World Health Organization (WHO) and another from the French Pasteur Institute in Madagascar have identified the fluvirus as type A, which does not kill if the patient receives medicine and cure in time.

"All provincial administrations in Madagascar are mobilized in the fight against flu because the virus infects through air contact, which made it difficult to stop," said the Madagascar ministerial statement.

The majority of those affected by the virus lived in poor, isolated, rural communities. Madagascar is still coming to terms with the effect of a seven-month political crisis, which caused the economy to collapse.

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