Experts warn of new diseases and return of highland malaria in Kenya

By GATONYE GATHURA

NAIROBI, KENYA: The United Nations experts have warned Kenya of new diseases, mainly from wild and domestic animals, and the return of deadlier highland malaria epidemics.

Within six years, the consequence of climate change will be so brutal with previously harmless insects such as ticks becoming the biggest source of human and livestock diseases in this country.

Pests and disease will be so severe, wiping whole crops such as tea in some major growing areas like the Trans Mara region and pushing many communities into absolute poverty. Because of this, almost a third of children will be stunted and malnourished by 2050.

Ticks, it is predicted, will be the biggest problem for both human and animal health with frequent outbreaks of East Coast and the Rift Valley Fever by 2020.

The report, which takes the threat of climate change to a whole new level, warns all countries of sweeping consequences to life and livelihood.

For example, while Kenya has reduced malaria prevalence in some places like the Coast by almost 40 per cent and hopes to eliminate the disease within three years, these gains could be irreparably reversed in coming years.

MORE DEATHS

“Movement of the malaria parasite into new highland regions will mean more epidemics and more deaths because residents of such areas have no natural immunity,” says the report by United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Already, the report says, some of these changes are seen, though gradually. In February, evidence was tabled at a scientific conference at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) showing that Kenyans are already being infected with previously non-human diseases.

The researchers found 94 patients in Tana River, Baringo and Naivasha infected with viruses previously very rare in humans. These were Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever virus, Rift Valley Fever virus, Chikungunya virus and West Nile virus. The patients were mainly thought to have been bitten by ticks from domestic and wild animals.

In the same month, a 30-year-old woman in Mwea, in Kirinyaga County, had scientists baffled when she almost died from a tick bite. Her condition was finally diagnosed to the bite of the  zebra or yellow-backed tick not previously known to cause such illness in humans.

“Our study indicates the possible emergence of unknown tick-borne diseases especially where there is high human-wildlife-livestock interactions and calls for new policy thinking,” says Dr Wycliffe Wanzala of Icipe, who handled the case.

It is more bad news for employers mainly in agriculture and little children because for the first time Nairobi and other parts of the country will have to worry over the effects of heat waves on production and health of workers.

“High temperatures are now associated with increased deaths in Nairobi, Ghana and Burkina Faso. This is an important issue for Africa because of the number of outdoor workers engaged in agriculture in the region,” says the report.

In a departure from most of its past weather forecasts in February, the Metrological Department had warned of possible heat waves in the northern part of the country.

Kenyans, the report says, should expect more frequent and deadlier epidemics of the Rift Valley Fever, which killed 118 people out of 404 cases between 2006 and 2007 mainly in the north.

Some good news for people at the Coast and the Lake Victoria basin is the forecast of a reduction of bilharzia disease common in these areas.