Respiratory Illness Kills 11 in Sudan

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Nov 02, 2003 (AP) — At least 11 people in central Sudan have died and more than 16,000 have been hospitalized with a respiratory illness doctors link to an annual locust invasion, the country’s official news agency said Saturday.

The peak was reported a week ago when some 500 cases were admitted to a hospital in Medani, Sudan’s second-largest city, 112 miles south of Khartoum.

“The cases of lung eczema increased as of the 22nd of October in an average that exceeded the normal rate, a matter we considered as an epidemic situation for the patient suffering from eczema of the respiratory system,” the local government said in a statement carried by the news agency.

The statement was prepared by a committee including federal experts in eczema and respiratory diseases, and local physicians.

This is the first such outbreak of respiratory illness in the area.

A spokesman for the World Health Organization, Dick Thompson, told The Associated Press that infectious disease experts at the Geneva-based U.N. health agency were unaware of the outbreak, but said the occurrence of such a “toxic event” could not be ruled out.

Abdel Moneim Hassan Khalifa, an agricultural official in the Medani area, was quoted in Saturday’s al-Rai al-Amm newspaper as saying the illness is linked to a hormone — released by the dark-red locusts during mating season — which “has a strong effect on people with asthma.”

The committee has provided medication, oxygen and equipment for patients. The area has been sprayed with insecticide since last week and the numbers of deaths and infections have dropped, the statement said.