{"id":284037,"date":"2019-08-13T13:03:49","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T17:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CBMiO2h0dHA6Ly93d3cueGluaHVhbmV0LmNvbS9lbmdsaXNoLzIwMTktMDgvMTQvY18xMzgzMDY4MjguaHRt0gEA?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-10-18T11:30:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T15:30:21","slug":"dire-dawa-chikungunya-outbreak-2019-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/284037","title":{"rendered":"Dire Dawa recorded more than 40,000 suspected chikungunya cases in Ethiopia’s second documented outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dire Dawa health officials reported more than 3,750 suspected chikungunya cases on Aug. 13, 2019, in an outbreak the World Health Organization later counted at over 40,000 suspected cases.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/figure>\n

An Aedes aegypti mosquito, one of the species that transmits chikungunya, in a 2006 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention photo. (James Gathany \/ CDC via Wikimedia Commons, public domain) [file photo]<\/em><\/p>\n

Fuad Kedir, head of the city administration's health bureau, said it had not yet been confirmed that all the cases were chikungunya because the illness shares symptoms with malaria and dengue, Xinhua and Ethiopian Monitor reported. He said no deaths had been recorded and that more than 179,000 insecticide-treated bed nets had been distributed.<\/p>\n

Fuad said the disease had previously affected the Somali, Afar and Southern regions and might have reached Dire Dawa through mosquitoes. There is no cure, and avoiding mosquito bites is the most effective protection, Ethiopian Monitor reported.<\/p>\n

A rapid response team from the Ethiopian Public Health Institute and WHO collected samples, and 12 tested positive for chikungunya by RT-PCR, the WHO Regional Office for Africa said. The outbreak began in Kebele 6 around July 30 and had spread to all nine urban kebeles by Aug. 13.<\/p>\n

From July 30 to Sept. 15, Dire Dawa reported 40,340 suspected cases, 16 of them laboratory-confirmed, and no deaths, an attack rate of 12.1 percent in an estimated population of 334,695, according to WHO. Cases peaked in the week ending Sept. 8, when more than 10,000 suspected cases were reported.<\/p>\n

Women accounted for 51 percent of cases and adults aged 15 to 44 for 61 percent, WHO said. The agency described it as Ethiopia's second documented chikungunya outbreak, after one reported in June 2016 in the Somali Region, which borders Kenya's Mandera County.<\/p>\n

WHO said the outbreak caused a substantial loss of productivity because so many patients, and relatives caring for them, stayed home. Earlier entomological studies had identified Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, the mosquitoes that transmit the virus, in several regions including Dire Dawa, the agency said.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong> WHO Regional Office for Africa, Weekly Bulletin on Outbreaks and Other Emergencies, week 38, 2019 (PDF)<\/a>, Ethiopian Monitor<\/a>, Xinhua<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dire Dawa health officials reported more than 3,750 suspected chikungunya cases on Aug. 13, 2019, in an outbreak the World Health Organization later counted at over 40,000 suspected cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":837949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/aedes-aegypti-mosquito-cdc.jpg?fit=700%2C470&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1bTf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284037"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837963,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284037\/revisions\/837963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}