Posted on 02/18/2005 4:21:17 PM PST by neverdem
Associated Press Writer
KINSHASA, Congo -- A rare form of plague has killed at least 61 people at a diamond mine in the remote wilds of northeast Congo, and authorities fear hundreds more who fled into the forests to escape the contagion are infected and dying, the World Health Organization said Friday.
Eric Bertherat, a doctor for the U.N. health agency, said the outbreak has been building since December around a mine near Zobia, 170 miles north of Kisangani, the capital of the vast Oriental province.
Nearly all the 7,000 miners have abandoned the infected area and sought refuge in the world's second-largest tropical rain forest, all but cut off from the outside world.
Security fears -- mainly from bandits and militia left over from Congo's five-year war -- also have slowed international response, Bertherat said.
Plague is spread mainly by fleas and causes an infection in the lungs that slowly suffocates its victims. If caught in time, it can be treated with antibiotics.
Bubonic plague is the most common form of plague and is transmitted to people through the bite of an infected flea. It usually is spread by rodents. It does not spread person to person.
Pneumonic plague -- the kind in the current outbreak -- is rarer but also more easily transmitted from person to person through coughing or close contact.
Bertherat, speaking to reporters by telephone from Geneva, said plague commonly is found in this region of northern Congo, but an outbreak this large was unusual.
Unlike the deadly Ebola virus, which also is found in the dark forests of Congo, Bertherat said this outbreak of plague was unlikely to spread too quickly, given the remote and isolated terrain.
"It's still a large concern," Bertherat said, "because these are cases moving elsewhere."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Ping. This is the article you saw before nw_az.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Damn.
If this isn't a good reason to close the borders....
Damn.
African test tubes
If I'm not mistaken, this is a supposedly-not-open yellowcake uranium mine that the "Democratic People's Republic of the Congo" pretends was abandoned years ago.
(Wonder who is buying yellowcake ? Iran has her own mines.)
Would it be amiss to suggest this was a little biowarfare "experiment" ??
.. earthquakes and pestulences in divers places.
Poor Congo never gets a break.
Poor Congo never gets a break.
Actually I have seen research that says it is spread by 22 month old girls in mother's day out. < /sarcasm>
Why who would believe that such a complicated system could have "evolved" from a bunch of random molecules? It must have been Intelligent Design!
please put me on the list
This is pneumonic. It doesn't need fleas. It spreads like a cold.
The same thing could happen with AIDs if we do not start putting stringent public health procedures into effect.
The pneumonic form is also about 90% fatal. The bubonic form runs about 30. Nasty stuff.
You can tell who President Bush doesn't like by who he appoints as the American Ambassador to Congo.
I think they're talking about the pneumonic version here. I don't know whether the bubonic version affects the lungs or not.
Probably, their goose is cooked once they have bacteremia and sepsis.
Three forms of the plague exist: bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, and septicemic plague. The bubonic form of the plague involves the pathognomonic “bubo” and is caused by deposition of the bacillus in the skin by the bite of an infected vector. If the vector is a flea, bacillus proliferates in the flea's esophagus, preventing food entry into the stomach. To overcome starvation, the flea begins a blood-sucking rampage. Between its attempts to swallow, the distended bacillus-packed esophagus recoils, depositing the bacillus into the victim's skin.
The bacillus invades nearby lymphoid tissue, producing the famous bubo, an inflamed, necrotic, and hemorrhagic lymph node. Spread occurs along the lymphatic channels toward the thoracic duct, with eventual seeding of the vasculature. Bacteremia and septicemia ensue. The bacillus potentially seeds every organ, including the lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, and rarely even the meninges.
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