Abidjan - A yellow fever outbreak has killed at least 15 people in Ivory Coast and threatens many more in the West African country, the head of a government crisis team said on Friday.
The United Nation's World Health Organisation appealed for funds on Wednesday to help the cash-strapped government in an emergency campaign to vaccinate three million people.
"Up to now we have had 128 suspected cases of which 20 were confirmed in the laboratory and 15 are dead," said Guillaume Loukou Yao, Ivory Coast's health inspector and head of the crisis committee.
The mosquito-borne virus thrives in densely populated areas like Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan. Although most recover, victims can suffer jaundice and bleed from eyes, nose and mouth before kidney failure and death.
Yao told Reuters that as well as the vaccination campaign, teams would also be sent out to clean up the drainage ditches and other places where the mosquitoes that transmit the virus breed. - Reuters