SA on alert for 'black death' plague
Although there's no real threat of the bubonic plague becoming a widespread phenomenon in the country, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases says we shouldn't ignore the alert from the World Health Organisation.
"It would really involve individual people coming back who got the infection there - transmitting it locally and that's the sort of individual that we need to be on the lookout for," says the institute's deputy director, Professor John Frean.
WHO has listed nine countries, including South Africa, that it believes are at risk of detecting cases of the disease.
Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Mauritius and the Seychelles are some of the countries directed to prepare for possible cases.
Madagascar is currently experiencing an outbreak that's claimed at least 124 lives.
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Professor Frean says the concerns stem from the direct travel links between the two countries.
"We have to be prepared in the same way we were prepared for the chance of an Ebola infected patient might arrive from West Africa. The mechanisms to detect those ill people to isolate, assess and trace any contact they may have had are in place," he says.
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