Rift Valley Fever Death Toll Rises to 122 in Yemen

Rift Valley fever has killed 44 people in north Yemen during the past 48 hours, bringing the death toll from the viral disease to 122 in only a matter of days, a Health Ministry official said Saturday.

The official said 23 people died in Wadi Mour and 21 more in the adjoining northern region of Hajjah.

The virus is transmitted from infected animals to humans through contact or by mosquitoes and causes diarrhea, nausea, and internal bleeding that can result in death.

Neighboring Saudi Arabia has reported 16 deaths from the fever in its southern region near the Yemeni border in the past two weeks.

Medical sources in Saudi Arabia, however, told Reuters that “up to 100 people” had died in the kingdom from the viral disease since it broke out nearly two weeks ago. A Yemeni newspaper placed the number of dead in Yemen also at 100.

At the Sana government’s request, Saudi aircraft sprayed the affected areas in Yemen last week with anti-mosquito insecticides.

Jordan is fumigating against mosquitoes in towns and villages and at cattle farms, slaughterhouses and waste dumps.

Jordanian health officials say neither Rift Valley nor West Nile fever have been reported in the kingdom.

Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates banned livestock imports from some African countries to prevent the spread of the disease.

Saudi sources, who declined to be named, said the disease already might have spread outside the affected southwestern province of Jizan, possibly through livestock that moved outside the area before health measures were imposed.

Bahrain banned imports of cattle, camels, and goats or their meat from Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria and Djibouti, state media reported.

A Health Ministry official said that Bahrain had not been infected by the fever but that farms and open areas would be sprayed with pesticides to kill mosquitoes.

Oman banned livestock imports from Yemen and several unnamed East African states, the official Oman News Agency said.

A Health Ministry official said that no cases of the disease had been reported in Oman but that authorities had been put on a state of alert.

The United Arab Emirates said it was stopping imports of meat and poultry from Yemen, Kenya, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Nigeria.