HMN 2025: How Colombia declares emergency over yellow fever outbreak

Colombia has declared a nationwide well being and financial emergency over a lethal yellow fever outbreak, with the federal government urging folks to get vaccinated and take precautions whereas touring over Easter weekend.

The mosquito-borne virus, which generally causes fever, muscle pains, nausea and complications, is endemic to a number of international locations in South America, together with Colombia, where the present outbreak has had a excessive mortality price.

At least 34 folks have died amongst 74 confirmed circumstances for the reason that begin of the yr, Minister of Health Guillermo Jaramillo informed state-run Radio Nacional de Colombia on Wednesday.

“It’s a illness with a mortality price of practically 50% amongst these contaminated,” he stated whereas explaining the emergency decree.

The virus has additionally unfold past the agricultural areas historically thought of in danger for outbreaks, “making it a risk to extra communities,” he stated.

The most extreme scenario is within the coffee-growing Tolima space, where the variety of detected yellow fever circumstances rose from 4 in September 2024 to 22 by mid-April, in line with Jaramillo.

“We are going to require the carrying of the vaccination card for folks getting into or leaving Colombia,” he informed the radio station.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro introduced an financial emergency on prime of the well being decree, and known as on residents to get vaccinated.

“People who haven’t been vaccinated shouldn’t go to high-risk areas throughout Easter: for now the espresso space,” he wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.

Petro blamed local weather change for additional spreading the virus by bringing the disease-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to greater altitudes.

On Tuesday, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) upgraded its yellow fever alert for South America to stage two of 4, noting “an elevated variety of circumstances of yellow fever have been reported in components of South America.”

It suggested vacationers to think about getting vaccinated towards yellow fever or receiving booster pictures earlier than visiting some areas of Bolivia, Colombia and Peru.

© 2025 AFP