LONDON (AlertNet) - A massive plague epidemic could hit eastern Congo after an alarming spike in infections in recent weeks, a German medical charity warned on Thursday.
There have been 1,400 cases so far this year, 600 of them in June and July, said Alfred Kinzelbach, regional coordinator for aid agency Malteser International. That compares with 800 cases for the whole of 2005.
Health workers are particularly concerned about a sudden increase in extremely contagious pneumonic plague. Most of the cases are bubonic plague, which is spread by infected rat fleas, but pneumonic plague, an airborne disease, can pass between humans.
"If you have two cases of pneumonic plague then perhaps the whole village will get it, so it spreads much quicker than the bubonic plague," Kinzelbach told AlertNet in an interview. "People can die within 24 hours so you have to treat it quickly."
Around 10 percent of people who catch the plague are dying - double the rate last year, he said.
"We fear a masssive epidemic, if we do not immediately treat the sick people, inform the population of the risks and fight the vectors, the fleas of rodents," Malteser said in a statement.
The outbreak is near Lake Albert in northeast Ituri district, where militias are still fighting three years after the end of Congo's six-year war, the world's deadliest conflict since World War Two.
"Numbers have shot up quite a lot since 2003," Kinzelbach said. "We now have a severe peak."
"The insecurity and looting has made it worse. Because people are afraid their crops will get stolen they are bringing them into their homes and that attracts the rats."
Malteser International, which launched a six-month plague prevention programme this week, says traditional customs, such as washing corpses during the mourning period, are also exacerbating infection rates.
"We are in quite a remote area and beliefs are very strong," he said, speaking by telephone from Uganda. "People do not really believe the plague is a disease. They think it's sorcery or a curse or because the ancestors are angry ... so they won't go (immediately) to the health centre so treatment is delayed."
If someone dies away from home experts say they should be buried immediately, but many families want to take the body back to their villages for funeral rites that can last several days.
"The family has to wash the dead body, which means everyone is touching highly infectious material, and usually the whole village comes and participates," Kinzelbach said.
He cited the example of one village where 12 mourners for a plague victim had contracted the disease within a week of the funeral ceremony.
Malteser International, which is training staff in health centres to identify symptoms, says free treatment is vital in a region where people may earn just 40 cents a day.
The agency is also teaching villagers how to spray huts with insecticide and spot danger signs - including something as simple as a missing cat.
"We are explaining what the plague is, that it's not a spell. It's a disease that comes from rats and fleas... We say if you see a lot of dead rats and then a cat disappears, tell us."
