The Rift Valley Fever disease has claimed two more lives at the Sangailu dispensary and Garissa Provincial General Hospital in Kenya's North Eastern Province, raising the death toll to 52, Kenya News Agency reported Monday.

Four new cases of the fever have been recorded in Ijara and Garissa Districts in the province to bring the total number of cumulative cases in the region to 105.

Addressing the press on Monday, North Eastern Provincial Medical Officer of Health Ahmed Omar said that one death has occurred at Sangailu dispensary while patients from Bilbil in Tana River District in Coast Province succumbed to the disease at the Garissa Provincial General Hospital last night.

He said teams of 10 doctors were dispatched Monday morning to support other doctors on the ground to prevent the killer disease from spreading further. Three of the four new cases are recorded in Ijara while the other is from Garissa District.

Omar said that due to the vastness of the province, it was difficult to tell whether the disease was under control adding that he was waiting for reports from doctors on the ground tomorrow.

He decried the impassability of roads in the region and the nomadic lifestyle of the local community adding that the twin problems have hampered government effort to control disease once and for all.

Rift Valley Fever is endemic in Africa, naturally occurring in livestock but occasionally affecting humans. Animals are infected with the virus by the Aedes mosquito.

The disease, characterized by bleeding from all orifices, is spread to humans in a number of ways: from infected mosquitoes; through contact with blood or other body fluids; or from the organs of infected animals.

Symptoms of the disease include fever, general weakness and malaise, cough and diarrhoea, with severe cases progressing to show facial swelling and bleeding from the orifices. The incubation period (interval from infection to onset of symptoms) of Rift Valley Fever varies from two to six days.

The fever mainly occurs following periods of heavy rainfall. In 1998, an outbreak claimed at least 200 lives in the North Eastern Province following the El Nino rains.

Kenya's North Eastern and Coast provinces also experienced heavy rainfall in November and December this year which led to massive flooding, affecting hundreds of thousands of people.

Source: Xinhua