Diphtheria Outbreak
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced in a statement received on Thursday that 58 people, many of them small children, had died as a result of a diphtheria outbreak in northeastern Guinea.
Five to ten percent of cases of the highly contagious respiratory illness can be fatal, and the number is even higher in children.
Since July, the WHO has recorded well over 500 suspected cases, mostly in the Siguiri prefecture. Usually, fever and sore throat are the first signs to appear.
WHO noted that vaccination coverage against diphtheria has been below 50% of the population since 2014 and that Guinea’s health services are ill-equipped to handle the outbreak.
Sustaining community protection against diphtheria requires a coverage rate of 80–85%.
