Sub-Saharan Africa is literally teeming with hundreds of contagions. Most outbreaks rarely make mass media headlines, but these epidemics could easily turn to global pandemics, should the international community ignore the millions of deaths and allow sub-par medical facilities to flounder in preventing or containing highly contagious and lethal diseases.
TB surfaced throughout South Africa , although largely within KwaZulu-Natal province, with a virulent strain?known as XDR-TB–that has 328 reported cases. Nearly one case is reported every day (source). The mortality rate for this outbreak has been called ?unprecedented? (source). Medical conditions are unlikely to have contained the virus to that country alone, as epidemiological tracking is only now beginning. Neighboring countries?Lesotho , Swaziland , Mozambique , and possibly Zimbabwe –are unlikely to have the medical faculties or training to contain the disease. While XDR has broken out in China and Russia, the African outbreak is more worrisome due to its simultaneity with an HIV pandemic, which weakens the immune system to allow XDR to overtake the body. Millions of Africans?often destitute refugees who may not be aware or care that they are infected with TB–may fall victim to the disease. South Africa is considering forcibly isolating those infected with XDR because the high volume of tourists and migrant workers might spark a transnational pandemic. This is particularly controversial and sensitive given South Africa?s history with human rights abuses.
HIV is prevalent in five million South Africans alone. Millions of people are infected throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. The disease killed two million Africans in 2006.
Cholera and other water-borne diseases are prevalent throughout Africa, especially after flooding or other conditions that mix fresh and waste waters. East Africa (Kenya , Somalia , Ethiopia , Eritrea , and Sudan ) were particularly hard hit in late November 2006 due to flooding, which are expected from June 2006 through mid-January 2007. Similar circumstances will apply to Angola , which is witnessing ?alarming? rates of cholera cases, Mozambique, and Zambia through mid-March 2007 as well.
Avian Influenza or H5N1 broke out in Nigeria in February 2006 and in Egypt in March 2006, October 2006, and December 2006/January 2007, although it is more frequently seen in Asia, where humans and birds are in close contact. Regardless, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization met in Mali in late 2006 and announced that, among other regions, Africa ?remain[ed] particularly vulnerable because of the shortfall in donor funding? and should be ?a top priority for resources and technical assistance? (source). While the rest of the world frantically prepares for a global outbreak, Africa has no coordinated response at the national or local levels for animal or human outbreaks.
Yellow Fever, spread by mosquito, breaks out sporadically throughout Africa, specifically in Cote d?Ivoire in October 2006. Some 15 percent of patients die within 24 hours of infection and often suffer from hemorrhagic bleeding.
Rift Valley Fever is endemic to remote northeastern regions of Kenya, where 32 reported cases have led to 19 deaths in 2006 and broke out again in December 2006/January 2007. It has also appeared in Egypt and Madagascar .
Other: Angola is working to resolve an unknown viral hemorrhagic fever?not Marburg or Ebola?that appeared in December 2006 in both eastern and western regions of the country. The two outbreaks could be different pathogens but seem equally fatal. Angola witnessed the largest recorded outbreak of Marburg in 2005, and southern Sudan?s Yambio area reported concurrent Ebola and measles outbreaks in 2004. Both diseases are generally short lived, as they cannot incubate in hosts before they die.
Conclusion
Most African nations have neither adequate medical facilities and training to diagnose and treat pandemic disease nor epidemiological surveillance technologies to track disease migration. Many hospitals do not have sufficient medical supplies to treat mass volumes of patients of diseases that are easily treatable with modern science. Some of the diseases could be controlled with cheap and easy remedies, to include anti-mosquito repellent, rehydration salts, antibiotics, animal movement control, and hygienic practices. And, many governments are slow to accept international aid due either to embarrassment of an outbreak, to apathy, or to a rejection of international meddling in domestic affairs.
