Fears over Congo fever spreading in Namibia dismissed

Namibia's health minister Bernard Haufiku said Monday that the situation regarding the Crimean Congo Fever that killed one person on Feb. 22 is under control.

Haufiku told a media conference in Windhoek that the condition of the nine people who are under observation was satisfactory.

Five of the nine are a doctor and four nurses from Gobabis District Hospital who attended to the unnamed patient without protective clothing. They are under observation at Gobabis (about 200 kilometers from capital Windhoek).

The other four are being observed at the Windhoek Central Hospital. They were brought in from a farm where the man who died of the fever was working.

Haufiku said blood tests for the four people in Windhoek were done and sent to a laboratory in South Africa.

He also said doctors were carrying out routine checks on a daily basis until the expiry of the 10-day incubation period of the fever. Endit