Deadly Airborne Plague In Comoros And Madagascar As It Infects Over 1300 People

Health chiefs are desperately trying to contain a deadly outbreak of airborne plague in Africa that has prompted warnings in nine countries.

More than 1,300 cases have now been reported in Madagascar, health chiefs have revealed, as nearby nations have been placed on high alert.

Two thirds of those are suspected to be pneumonic – described as the ‘deadliest and most rapid form of plague’, World Health Organization figures show.

The deadly disease is caused by the same bacteria that wiped out at least 50 million people in Europe in the 1300s.

However, the lethal form currently spreading is different to the bubonic strain which was behind history’s Black Death. Pneumonic can spread through coughing and can kill within 24 hours.

The outbreak is moving quickly, with several British holiday hotspots now deemed at risk of the epidemic spreading, including Seychelles, South Africa and La Reunion.

Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Comoros and Mauritius are the six other countries to have received the heightened alert.

It has been reported as many as 50 aid workers are believed to have been among the people infected.

The African branch of the WHO states 93 people have lost their lives to the disease so far, lower than the 124 noted in official UN figures.

A WHO official said: ‘The risk of the disease spreading is high at national level… because it is present in several towns and this is just the start of the outbreak.’

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