Jamaica battles 1st malaria outbreak in decades

KINGSTON, Jamaica (Reuters Life!) - Jamaican health authorities are battling an outbreak of malaria that has infected 15 people in the Kingston area but has so far not spread to other parts of the Caribbean island.

Jamaica has not recorded a case of the mosquito-borne illness in 50 years, said Dr. Marion Ducasse, the health ministry's senior medical officer.

The health ministry announced late on Monday that it had confirmed 15 cases of malaria, 6 of them among children and all of them in the capital and the neighboring central parish of St. Catherine.

Those affected were hospitalized and health officials said their condition was not considered life-threatening.

The government boosted its pesticide-spraying and launched a campaign to clear standing water that could serve as breeding ponds for the Anopheles mosquito, which carries the parasites that cause malaria.

The disease, marked by high fevers, shaking chills and flu-like illness, kills more than one million people a year worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Death can usually be prevented with prompt treatment.

Malaria is present in 107 countries and affects 10 percent of the world's population, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, the WHO said.

It was confirmed in Jamaica over the weekend when several residents of Denham Town, a run-down section of volatile west Kingston, went to the hospital for treatment.

Malaria was eradicated decades ago throughout the Caribbean islands, except for Hispaniola, the island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, but can be reintroduced when infected travelers are bitten by mosquitoes.