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WHO calls emergency meeting on yellow fever outbreak

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GENEVA - The World Health Organization will hold an emergency meeting Thursday on the yellow fever outbreak that has hit hardest in Angola but risks spreading further if vaccinations are not ramped up.

Such meetings from the UN agency are often held before the declaration of an international health emergency, as happened amid the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and the current surge in neurological disorders linked to the spread of Zika virus in the Americas.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told AFP the meeting had been called to underscore the severity of the yellow fever outbreak and to re-emphasise the need for mass vaccination against the viral disease.

As of May 12, Angola had reported 2,267 suspected yellow fever cases and 293 deaths in an outbreak that began in December and is most heavily concentrated in the capital Luanda

publish - By AFP 18th May 2016

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Has the yellow fever outbreak tipped over into a global health emergency?

statnews.com - by Helen Branswell - May 17, 2016

The World Health Organization is attempting to ratchet up attention on a highly concerning yellow fever outbreak in Africa.

The global health agency announced Tuesday it is convening a panel of experts to advise it on whether the outbreak — which started in Angola but has spread from there — meets the criteria to be declared a global public health emergency. The so-called emergency committee will hold its first meeting Thursday, by teleconference.

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CLICK HERE - World Health Organization - Yellow Fever

CLICK HERE - World Health Organization - More on Yellow Fever

cnn.com - by Debra Goldschmidt - May 19, 2016

CLICK HERE - WHO Statement - Meeting of the Emergency Committee under the International Health Regulations (2005) concerning Yellow Fever

The yellow fever outbreak in Angola is serious and of great concern, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

The WHO held an emergency meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday to review the latest information about the outbreak that began in December. The committee said the outbreak does not constitute a public health emergency.

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reuters.com - by Ed Cropley - June 10, 2016

The world's worst yellow fever outbreak in decades took hold in an Angolan slum because its early victims were Eritrean migrants whose false vaccination papers sent doctors off on the wrong path for weeks, international health officials said.

The flare-up of the mosquito-borne disease has killed 325 people in Angola, spread as far as China - which has close commercial links with oil-rich Angola - and raised fears of the world running out of vaccine, but it might have been stopped in its tracks if it had been identified quickly in Luanda.

Since the outbreak was identified in January, 10.5 million Angolans - 40 percent of the population - have been vaccinated and the World Health Organization (WHO) plans to cover the rest of the war-scarred country by the end of the year.

But with a reported case this week of the disease jumping via a mosquito from one person to another in Kinshasa, a city of over 12 million in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, there are concerns about global vaccine supplies running out.

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