INTERNATIONAL TASK FORCE COMBATS EPIDEMIC IN NICARAGUA, AS EFFORTS TO IDENTIFY CAUSE CONTINUE

Press Release
H/2884

INTERNATIONAL TASK FORCE COMBATS EPIDEMIC IN NICARAGUA, AS EFFORTS TO IDENTIFY CAUSE CONTINUE

NEW YORK, 3 November (WHO) -- The Pan American Health Organization (AMRO/PAHO), which serves as the World Health Organization Regional Office for the Americas, is working in Nicaragua to identify an unknown disease that has led to at least 15 deaths and is maintaining 24-hour contact with the WHO's new Division of Emerging Viral and Bacterial Disease Surveillance and Control in Geneva.

An international team of epidemiologists comprised of experts from the Cuban Government, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the AMRO/PAHO headquarters in Washington, D.C., and its local office in Managua has been dispatched to the field in Nicaragua and is working in conjunction with a task force established by the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health.

Nicaragua's President, Violeta Chamorro, has declared a medical emergency in the country. Rumours that the disease has spread to Honduras have not been confirmed, but the national WHO/PAHO office in Honduras is continuing its own investigation.

Epidemiological investigations of the disease are continuing in the Achuapa Region, a rural area about 100 kilometres north-west of Managua where the first cases of the outbreak were reported. Specimens from patients have been sent to the WHO Collaborating Centres at CDC in Fort Collins, Colorado, and in Atlanta to identify the cause.

To date, more than 1,000 cases of illness have been reported in Nicaragua, with a total of 15 deaths. Symptoms include fever, headache and muscle pain. Some patients also suffer a decrease in blood pressure, as well as internal bleeding. Shortness of breath and bleeding into the lungs are present in fatal cases.

Investigations carried out locally by the international task force and at CDC indicate the outbreak is not due to dengue, which causes an illness popularly known as "breakbone fever" because of the severe muscle and joint pains it occasions. Nor does the outbreak appear to be yellow fever, according to investigators. Both dengue and yellow fever are mosquito-borne diseases.

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While research and investigation activities proceed locally, further testing of serum specimens for other mosquito-borne viruses, and viruses carried by other insects such as ticks, are being carried out at the CDC. The intensified team effort will continue until results of testing at CDC become available.

According to its current assessment of the situation, the WHO does not consider that restrictions are necessary on travel to Nicaragua or on transit through the national airport.

At the WHO headquarters in Geneva, the Division of Emerging Viral and Bacterial Disease Surveillance and Control is working closely with the Division for Emergency and Humanitarian Action to ensure further WHO support if required. Those two Divisions will continue on stand-by, ready to react with additional technical support should there be further epidemic spread or increase in the death rate.

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