Sierra Leone has given anti-malaria drugs to more than 2.5 million people in Ebola-affected areas and significantly reduced the number of patients with fever that might have been mistaken for Ebola, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. Malaria symptoms - fever, headache, aching joints - are similar to those of Ebola in its early stages, resulting in malaria patients going to Ebola treatment centres, putting pressure on health services and exposing themselves to nfection. To reduce malaria transmission and deaths, the WHO recommended the mass administration of anti-malarial drugs in Ebola hotspots in the West African country. "This intervention was done to reduce the number of febrile patients in the community so that people with fever caused by malaria would not be sent to the Ebola holding centres where they would be at risk of contracting Ebola," Daniel Kertesz, WHO representative in Sierra Leone, said in a statement.
via Health News Headlines - Yahoo News Read More Here..
No comments:
Post a Comment