Tick-borne fever claims victims in Turkey

Last Updated: 2006-07-05 12:35:24 -0400 (Reuters Health)

ANKARA - A tick-borne viral fever related to the more deadly Ebola virus may have claimed its 12th victim in Turkey this year, the state Anatolian news agency said on Wednesday.

Health officials told Reuters they were conducting tests on samples from 53-year-old Bayram Sacinti, who died earlier in the day after being hospitalised on suspicion of contracting the disease, known as Crimea-Congo haemorrhagic fever.

"We are carrying out tests. We have not yet confirmed the cause of his death," one official said.

The ministry has confirmed 44 deaths from the disease in Turkey since 2003, 11 of them so far this year. It is also investigating a death that occurred last weekend.

Anatolian said 14 other people, including three children, were being treated in the same hospital as Sacinti, in the Black Sea city of Samsun, for suspected Crimea-Congo fever.

Last week, Health Minister Recep Akdag dismissed as scare-mongering media talk of a possible epidemic in Turkey and called for calm.

His ministry has urged farmers and others in the countryside to take protective measures, such as covering the whole body and wearing thick boots.

Experts say the mortality rate from the disease, which has no known cure, stands at about five percent.

Crimea-Congo hemorrhagic fever has so far been identified in 22 provinces in Turkey, mostly in central Anatolia, the health ministry said in a statement.

The Crimea-Congo virus is found in many countries in Africa, Europe and Asia and belongs to the same family as the Ebola virus, which has killed hundreds of humans and primates in Africa.

Ebola damages blood vessels and can cause extensive bleeding, diarrhoea and shock. It is transmitted by infected body fluids and kills up to 90 percent of its victims.

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

Calif. prison health care in shambles-report

Last Updated: 2006-07-05 16:41:55 -0400 (Reuters Health)

SAN FRANCISCO - California's prison health-care system is at best in a "state of abject disrepair," the receiver appointed by a U.S. judge to probe its workings reported on Wednesday.

In his first bimonthly report, court-appointed receiver Robert Sillen concluded California's prison health-care system is in shambles.

"Almost every necessary element of a working medical care system either does not exist or functions in a state of abject disrepair," Sillen wrote in a scathing 37-page report based on observations from tours of five state prisons.

Because the prison health system is such a mess, it may have to be stripped from the control of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Sillen said.

U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson appointed Sillen, the top health-care official in California's Santa Clara County, in February to chart a course for overhauling the state's prison health-care system.

Henderson's order came as a result of a 2001 lawsuit claiming the state's prisons failed to meet basic standards in treating sick prisoners.

Placing "band-aids on gaping wounds," would only worsen the problem and lead to more waste of public resources, Sillen wrote.

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.