Yellow fever kills more than 100 people in Darfur; WHO, health ministry to provide immunizations

"More than two million people in Sudan's Darfur region will be vaccinated against a rare yellow fever outbreak suspected of killing 107 people since late September, health officials said on Tuesday," Agence France-Presse/France 24 reports (11/13). In a joint statement, the WHO and the Sudanese Ministry of Health said the mosquito-borne disease has spread throughout the western territory, which "has been plagued by conflict since rebels took up arms in 2003," Reuters notes (Dziadosz, 11/13). The International Coordinating Group on Yellow Fever Vaccine Provision, a WHO partnership with vaccine manufacturers, will provide the vaccines, according to VOA News (Lipin, 11/13). Anshu Banerjee of the WHO office in Sudan "said that while no yellow fever cases have been found outside Darfur, the WHO is planning a risk assessment in the next two weeks on the assumption that all areas in Sudan may be at risk of infection," the Associated Press reports. "The WHO estimates that more than 500 million people in 32 countries in Africa are at risk of yellow fever infection," the news service notes (Fick, 11/13).