{A measles outbreak in the copper-mining Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 315 people and infected at least 20,000, the United Nations said on Wednesday.}<\/p>\n
Hundreds more deaths have likely not been documented due to difficulties accessing remote areas, The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a draft report on the province’s worst outbreak of the disease since 2010-11.<\/p>\n
“The measles epidemic in the province of Katanga is only worsening and gaining ground,” said the report seen by Reuters.<\/p>\n
More than $2.4 million will be needed to organize vaccination drives and treat those already infected in the southeastern province, it said.<\/p>\n
Some 1,085 people died and about 77,000 were infected in the 2010-11 epidemic, according to a study in the scientific journal BMC Infectious Diseases.<\/p>\n
The industrial copper and cobalt mining zones in the province – Africa’s leading producer of both metals – have been largely untouched by the current outbreak as they lie hundreds of kilometers south of the worst affected areas.<\/p>\n
Measles is a highly contagious virus that can lead to deadly complications like diarrhea, dehydration, respiratory infection and encephalitis.<\/p>\n
Mortality rates are low in developed countries but can rise to as high as 20 percent in poorer countries, according to medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).<\/p>\n
It costs about $1 in developing countries to vaccinate a child against measles.<\/p>\n
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned last November that progress toward wiping out measles has stalled worldwide due to poor vaccine coverage.<\/p>\n
Access to healthcare is low in Congo, which ranks 186 out 187 on the UN Human Development Index.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{A measles outbreak in the copper-mining Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 315 people and infected at least 20,000, the United Nations said on Wednesday.} Hundreds more deaths have likely not been documented due to difficulties accessing remote areas, The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000069432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-20401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000069432,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20401.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20401.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20401.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20401.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20401.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20401.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000069432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20401"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=20401"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=20401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}