{"id":33208,"date":"2017-03-15T08:53:04","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T08:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/700-dead-as-malaria-epidemic-hits-burundi\/"},"modified":"2017-03-15T08:53:02","modified_gmt":"2017-03-15T08:53:02","slug":"700-dead-as-malaria-epidemic-hits-burundi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/700-dead-as-malaria-epidemic-hits-burundi\/","title":{"rendered":"700 dead as malaria ‘epidemic’ hits Burundi"},"content":{"rendered":"

{About 700 people have died from malaria in Burundi so far this year, the health minister said, with the authorities having registered 1.8 million infections in a rising epidemic.}<\/p>\n

“Burundi faces a malaria epidemic,” Josiane Nijimbere said Monday, commenting on a World Health Organization (WHO) report.<\/p>\n

From January 1 to March 10 this year, 1.8 million infections were registered in Burundi, according to the WHO.<\/p>\n

According to Nijimbere, the latest figures constitute a 17 percent increase from the same period last year.<\/p>\n

“Some 700 deaths” have been registered since January, the minister added.<\/p>\n

In 2016, an estimated 8.2 million people were infected and 3,000 people died in mountainous Burundi, which is home to around 11 million people.<\/p>\n

UN officials and medical sources say Burundi’s stock of anti-malaria medication is nearly empty.<\/p>\n

Nijimbere put the cost of fighting malaria at $31 million (29 million euros), as she appealed for donations to help fight the disease.<\/p>\n

She attributed the rise in infections to climate change, increased marshland for rice-growing and the population’s misuse of mosquito nets.<\/p>\n

Burundi has been plunged into chaos since President Pierre Nkurunziza’s controversial decision in April 2015 to run for a third term.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of others have fled the country.<\/p>\n

The crisis also led to a 54 percent cut to the government’s health budget in 2016 from the previous year.<\/p>\n

“This malaria crisis is even more dramatic because it is striking an impoverished, hungry population that has no resources and for whom even the slightest shock can have life-or-death consequences,” a diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

\"UN<\/figure>\n

Source:Daily Nation <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{About 700 people have died from malaria in Burundi so far this year, the health minister said, with the authorities having registered 1.8 million infections in a rising epidemic.} “Burundi faces a malaria epidemic,” Josiane Nijimbere said Monday, commenting on a World Health Organization (WHO) report. From January 1 to March 10 this year, 1.8 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[99],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-33208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","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":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","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":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33208","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=33208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33208"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=33208"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=33208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}