Urgent action is needed to combat a yellow fever epidemic in Africa amid signs it is turning into a global health emergency and a severe shortage of the vaccine, academics have warned. Africa and Latin America and the danger of an outbreak in Asia, immunologist Professor Daniel Lucey and Lawrence Gostin, a professor in global health law, called on the World Health Organisation (WHO) to declare an emergency saying delays over Ebola had “cost lives”.
And they also said that because of the surge in new infectious diseases in recent years – thought to be driven in part by climate change – the world should now set up a permanent committee to decide how to respond as new threats emerge. Angola is in the grip of its worst yellow fever epidemic since 1986 with more than 250 deaths, and the disease is spreading rapidly – Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have all reported cases. READ MORE
