Doctors on alert after probable SARS death in Africa
Hospitals and medical staff in Africa are already under enormous strain as a result of rampant malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis and cholera, but many countries have put hospitals on stand-by and set up isolation wards for any suspected case of the illness, for which there is as yet neither a cure nor a preventive vaccine.
A 62-year-old South African man died in Pretoria on Tuesday of cardiac complications, the South African government announced.
He was “diagnosed as a probable SARS case on the basis of the clinical symptoms and the fact that he had returned from Hong Kong shortly before becoming ill”.
However, the hospital where the man had been undergoing treatment said it did not believe his death was related to SARS, and clinical tests failed to show conclusively that he had the virus that causes SARS.
But African countries were screening incoming travellers and urging citizens to defer travel to Asia, where the outbreak is concentrated.
From Senegal to Mali in the west, from the tiny Atlantic archipelago of Cape Verde, a strategic refuelling point for longhaul flights to Kenya in east Africa, surveillance measures have been put in place at airports and other points of entry.
In Nairobi, Kenya Airways announced it had suspended planned maiden flights to Bangkok and Hong Kong scheduled to start on June 1.
South African Airways is reducing flights to Hong Kong from five to four a week in May and June, while Mauritius, a small island nation that lies off Africa’s southeastern coast in the Indian Ocean and has a large Asian community, suspended its two weekly flights to Hong Kong on April 1.
In South Africa’s northeastern neighbour Mozambique, the authorities yesterday urged nationals not to travel to countries affected by SARS.
Late on Tuesday a health official said on state radio that an outbreak of SARS in Mozambique, where hospitals and clinics are already strained by numerous cases of HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and cholera, would be “disastrous“.
“Our strategy is prevention, taking into account that our health infrastructure is already under pressure,” said Avertino Barreto, the deputy national director of health.
Surveillance of the border with South Africa has been stepped up as “South Africa has received many travellers from Asia”. South Africa is Mozambique’s main trading partner, and a lot of overland traffic passes between the two countries.
