WHO raises red flag over new disease carriers

By Gatonye Gathura

Kenya: The World Health Organisation has called on Kenya and other member countries to pay attention to emerging disease-spreading bugs.

The caution came just two days after a UN body on climate change warned on Monday about new diseases.

“More than half the world’s population is at bigger risk from disease such as dengue, leishmaniasis, Lyme disease, bilharzia, and yellow fever, carried by mosquitoes, flies, ticks, water snails and other vectors,” says Dr Margaret Chan, director-general of WHO.

On Monday, a report by the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), specifically pointed out the dangers facing Kenya as disease such as malaria, dengue and bilharzia change transmission patterns.

Medical authorities are especially worried about bilharzia, which is a major health burden in Kenya.

Last year, 80 per cent of youths in Magarini at the Coast could not be recruited into the Kenya Defence Forces because they were infected with bilharzia.

“Bilharzia transmitted by water snails, is the most widespread of all vector-borne diseases, affecting almost 240 million people worldwide,” says Dr Chan.

Children living and playing near infested water are particularly vulnerable to this disease, which causes anaemia and reduces ability to learn.

New threat

Worried about this new threat, Kenya and the rest of UN member countries will dedicate Monday the World Health Day to highlight the issue.

World Health Day observed on April 7, 2014, will be observed under the theme: Small Bite, Big Threat.

Local medical experts have also been doing their homework hunting for these vectors and mapping out possible ways of reducing danger to humans.

Last Friday, scientists at the Centre for Global Health Research, Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) released a map of bilharzia hotspots in western Kenya.

“We have identified a number of transmission sites for bilharzia in south Nyanza, western Kenya, mainly found near particular water bodies in Rachuonyo, Migori and Homa Bay districts,” says the report appearing in the current issue of the journal Parasites & Vectors.

Kemri study, led by Dr Huldah Sang, says bilharzia infects nearly six million people in Kenya and an additional 15 million are at high risk of infection, particularly in endemic areas such as the Lake Victoria region and the Coast.

The team sampled 3,846 children from 95 schools in western Kenya and found about 10 per cent of them carrying bilharzia-causing organism.

Because of the ongoing climatic changes, the IPCC report says the range where bilharzia is normally found in Kenya today is bound to change.

In 50 years, the report predicts it will be too warm in these areas for the comfort of the bilharzia-hosting snails and they may have to move to cooler waters in other regions.

The other disease the UN bodies warns about is the re-emergence of dengue fever, which WHO says has spread to 100 countries, putting more than 2.5 billion people — over 40 per cent of the world’s population — at risk.

Last year, Kenya experienced a near-dengue fever outbreak with 15 cases diagnosed at the coast region.

A recent global map on dengue hotspots in the world published in the journal Nature indicated Kenya, Somalia and Sudan as high-risk areas.

According to a statement from Wellcome Trust that is involved in the mapping project, the disease is present throughout the tropical regions of the world with small variations influenced strongly by rainfall, temperature and urbanisation.

Locally, a team of scientists at the Nairobi-based Institute of Primate Research (IPR) led by Dr Jeneby Maamun is investigating the circulation of dengue parasites in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa.

“We suspect the increasing incidence of dengue outbreaks in the region is being accelerated by urbanisation and temperature changes,” says Thomas Kariuki, the director at IPR.

Meanwhile, WHO is recommending simple measures to keep insects away and report any bites to health authorities because some could turn fatal.