Tanzania steps up surveillance after yellow fever scare

Tanzania has stepped up screening services at all border points to prevent an outbreak of yellow fever disease, which has claimed lives in neighboring countries.

In a statement issued on Thursday evening, Tanzania's minister of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elders and Children, Ummy Mwalimu directed the health practitioners to ensure surveillance is tightened along all borders and airport to prevent yellow fever.

The disease's symptoms include fever, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite. Yellow fever can be confused as dengue fever, malaria or other illnesses.

The minister statement came at the time when yellow fever is reported to have killed one Kenyan, who was returning to his home country after working and staying in Angola for 10 years.

Reports have it that yellow fever has claimed some 178 lives in Angola alone since the first case was recorded in December last year.

The DR Congo has so far reported at least eight deaths from yellow fever.

Both Kenya and the DR Congo have reported cases they suspected to originate from Angola.

The outbreak has been described as the worst in the country in the last three decades.

"As the country no case reported on the disease yet, but we're putting all the control mechanisms in order," the minister said.

She further noted that the government will take stern measures to any health practitioner who be involved in corruption by allowing travelers without thorough screening on his/her documents on yellow fever vaccinations.

Mwalimu directed officials in the entry points to ensure that travelers to Tanzania from high risk yellow fever countries produce a valid immunization certificate against the disease to be allowed into the country.

Experts have it that yellow fever is a viral hemorrhagic illness. It is transmitted to people after a mosquito becomes infected from biting an infected monkey and then the infected mosquito bites a person and infects him or her.

The World Health Organization estimates that there are between 84,000 and 170,000 cases of yellow fever a year and as many as 60,000 of those cases are fatal. Endit