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Outbreak of Rift Valley Fever kills 60 in Sudan

02.11.2007 - World Health Organization officials said Sudan had been "upfront and transparent" in alerting the international community to the disease.

GENEVA: An outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in Sudan has killed 60 people and infected at least 65 more, the World Health Organization said Friday.

WHO officials were alerted to an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever in Sudan's White Nile, Sinnar and Gezira states on Oct. 18, but only determined the exact nature of the disease in the past 48 hours, a spokesman for the U.N. health agency said.

"We have now got lab confirmation that in fact those cases were positive for Rift Valley Fever," John Rainford told The Associated Press.

Rift Valley Fever is normally a mild disease with a fatality rate of around 1 percent, suggesting that there are many more cases undetected in the area, he said.

There is no treatment for the disease, which is spread to humans from livestock.

Rainford said Sudanese officials had been "upfront and transparent" in alerting the international community to the disease — essential to containing the outbreak and helping those affected.

Since 1930, when the virus was first isolated during an investigation into an epidemic among sheep on a farm in the Rift Valley of Kenya, there have been outbreaks in sub-Saharan and North Africa.