YELLOW FEVER VACCINATIONS NEAR 1 MILLION MARK IN LIBERIA

9 February 1996

Press Release
H/2897

YELLOW FEVER VACCINATIONS NEAR 1 MILLION MARK IN LIBERIA

19960209 GENEVA, 9 February (WHO) -- A joint World Health Organization-led mass vaccination campaign launched in late November 1995 to control a yellow fever outbreak in Liberia has succeeded in vaccinating almost 1 million people in the war-torn west African country, the largest ever emergency vaccination campaign against the disease.

Nearly 80 per cent of the original target of 1.3 million people have now been vaccinated, including refugees, out of a total national population of 2.4 million. International organizations expect to complete their vaccination activities by the end of this month, after which maintenance will be assumed by the Ministry of Health.

The campaign has been implemented amid harrowing conditions, including poor communications, security problems and the need to control a simultaneous outbreak of cholera in Grand Bassa County and the appearance of Ebola haemorrhagic fever across the border in neighbouring Cote d'Ivoire.

"This operation was a major challenge to carry out in view of the complex emergency situation on the ground, and the security risks involved", said Dr. Fabrizio Bassani, Director of the WHO's Division of Emergency and Humanitarian Action. "In a number of areas, access had to be negotiated in order for the vaccination teams to do their work."

The campaign has almost completely halted further spread of yellow fever. At the peak of the current outbreak, between 7 November and 15 December 1995, there were a total 356 reported cases and nine confirmed deaths, all of them in or around the port city of Buchanan in Grand Bassa County. Fewer than 20 cases have been reported since then in scattered rural areas with one additional death.

Most importantly, there have been no confirmed cases in Monrovia. The city's population has swelled to three times its pre-war level, and poor water and sanitation there provide fertile conditions for the Aedes aegypti mosquitos which spread the disease.

From 21 December 1995 to 5 January 1996, more than 600,000 residents and refugees in the city were vaccinated. Local communities were also mobilized to implement clean-up activities to destroy mosquito breeding sites.

There is no specific treatment for yellow fever, a serious public health risk throughout sub-tropical Africa. The WHO is particularly concerned that the abundance of mosquito vectors in many urban centres of Africa, combined with increased international travel, may cause outbreaks of the disease to quickly spread and develop into large-scale epidemics. Once an outbreak occurs, the most effective way to keep it from spreading is emergency mass vaccination, supplemented in some cases by vector control efforts.

The campaign in Liberia has been a combined effort of Liberia's Ministry of Health with the WHO Office in Monrovia, the Regional Office for Africa and

headquarters in Geneva. It was organized and implemented in conjunction with Medecins sans Frontieres (Belgium, France and Switzerland) and Save the Children, United Kingdom. Vaccines were contributed by the European Community Humanitarian Office, the Governments of Belgium and France and the WHO.

* *** *