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| Situation Update No. 4 Ref.no.: EP-20100120-24632-ZWE
Situation Update No. 4
On 2010-03-30 at 16:48:47 [UTC]
Event: Epidemic
Location: Zimbabwe Murwira area Bikita
Number of Deads: 183 person(s)
Number of Infected: 1843 person(s)
Situation: The United Nations has declared Zimbabwe’s measles outbreak “out of control” and appealed for US$8 million to combat the disease which has spread nationwide. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) issued a joint statement with the Zimbabwe government on Tuesday in which it said a measles outbreak first detected in November 2009 had “reached crisis proportion” and was spinning out of control. UNICEF director in Zimbabwe Peter Salama said the situation was so critical that most Zimbabwean children were at risk of dying from measles unless drastic action was taken to contain the outbreak. Measles is an infection caused by a virus, and mainly affects children under five years of age. It can be prevented through vaccination. “This is similar to what happened during the outbreak of cholera in 2008,” Salama said. More than 4,300 Zimbabweans died of cholera between August 2008 and July 2009, while nearly 100,000 others were affected by the outbreak of the waterborne disease. The cholera epidemic – that the World Health Organisation labelled the worst in Africa in more than 15 years – was only brought under control after international aid agencies moved in with water treatment chemicals as well as medicines and health support staff to treat the disease. |  | | | |
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