Rift Valley fever outbreak toll rises to 18 in northern Kenya

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2006

NAIROBI (AFP) — An outbreak of Rift Valley fever has killed at least 18 people in northeastern Kenya in the past two weeks, deepening the misery of thousands affected by recent flooding there, officials said. Five people have died in the region's health facilities and two others in villages in the past two days, bringing the total toll to 18 since mid-December when the disease was first seen, provincial medical chief Omar Ahmed said.

"We are working to contain the disease," Ahmed told AFP from Garissa, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) northwest of the capital. Health authorities last week said the disease had killed 11 people. The disease -- whose symptoms are fever, abdominal pain and vomiting of blood -- is usually associated with mosquito-borne epidemics during years of...