Nicaragua News Service October 29 - November 4, 1995 Vol. 3, No. 45 [Due to a family emergency, our correspondent in Managua was not able to send us the news memo. Two of the week's major news stories follow. We will include more in the next memo.] Major news stories for the week: 1. New epidemic at the doors of Managua. 2. Government returns property and compensates Somocistas. _______________________________________________________________________ 1. New epidemic at the doors of Managua. The new hemorrhagic fever epidemic that has already caused the death of some 20 people in the western part of Nicaragua is now threatening the capital, according to statements last week by spokespersons of the Health Ministry. The first cases of the "anonymous pestilence," as it is known in Nicaragua, were detected in the western city of Leon on October 14th and last week the disease reached Nagarote, fewer than 50 kilometers from Managua. Three more deaths have been reported in the past 24 hours from the so far unidentified epidemic centered on the Achuapa region of Nicaragua, some 100 kilometers north-west of the capital, Managua. This brings the total number of deaths to 18, with over 1,000 people infected since the first cases were registered on 13 October. Health specialists, who do not yet know what causes the disease or how it is spread, also fear that it could reach the other countries of Central America. Tests carried out by U.S. and Cuban health experts have indicated that it is not yellow fever or hemorrhagic dengue. The symptoms of the disease are high fever, headache, internal and external hemorrhaging and finally, if the lungs are affected, death can result. Cases similar to hemorrhagic dengue have appeared in Honduras, near the border with Nicaragua, where three people have died. Honduran officials first thought that the disease was hemorrhagic dengue but, upon discovering that it was affecting the lungs and could result in death in from 12 to 16 hours, decided that it was the same rare disease that has been afflicting its southern neighbor. Health officials have spoken of erecting a quarantine barrier at the border to prevent new cases from entering. Authorities of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) announced last week the formation of a strategy at the Central American regional level to counteract the spread of the disease. During the last three months, Central America has been pounded by epidemics ranging from common and hemorrhagic dengue to malaria and cholera. "Our experts are still working to establish a clear case definition of the disease," says Dr. Stephen Corber, Director of Disease Prevention and Control at the Pan American Health Organization's (PAHO) Washington headquarters. "There are three reasons why we believe it is not dengue," says Corber. "The aedes aegypti mosquito (the common carrier of dengue) is not present, our preliminary tests have proved negative, and people are suffering shortness of breath which is not found in dengue patients." Dengue currently affects some 25 countries in central and south America. Almost 200,000 cases of dengue and 5,000 cases of the more severe hemorrhagic dengue have been reported so far this year. The Nicaraguan health authorities have established a task force to determine the cause of the illness comprising experts from PAHO, which acts as the WHO regional office for the Americas, as well as epidemiologists and entomologists from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Cuban scientists. Tests at CDC laboratories in Fort Collins, Colorado, have confirmed that it is not dengue and are now testing serum specimens for other tick-borne and mosquito-borne viruses that cause hemorrhagic fevers. Yellow fever -- another mosquito-borne disease -- has also been ruled out. The results of these tests are not yet known but should be available shortly. PAHO is maintaining 24-hour contact with the new WHO Division of Emerging Viral and Bacterial Disease Surveillance and Control (EMC) in Geneva. The unit was established in face of the increasing numbers of outbreaks and epidemics in recent years. These have included yellow fever in Kenya, plague in India and Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Zaire. Dr. Lindsay Martinez of the EMC expects the number of epidemics to continue to increase reflecting changing conditions due to an ever expanding world population, urban overcrowding and the huge increase in international traffic. In the case of Latin America, one of the main causes is the fact that human beings are going into new and unexplored territory. "We are cutting down forests and coming into contact with animals and insects which may be carrying potentially dangerous microbes," she explains. (IPS) [Editor's note: U.S. experts at the Center for Disease Control, who have been studying samples from Nicaragua, announced on Nov. 6 that the deaths were caused by contaminated water containing the bacteria Lepdo spiros. More next week.] 2. Government returns property and compensates Somocistas. The "White Book" published by the National Corporation of the Public Sector (CORNAP) in 1995 giving an accounting of what was done with the 350 businesses under its administration during 1994, showed property returned to well-known officers in Somoza's National Guard, to high officials of the Somoza government and to important business partners of the Somoza family. In spite of repeated declarations by members of the government of President Violeta Chamorro throughout the previous four years to the effect that property would not be returned to Somocistas, the CORNAP "White Book" indicates that property was indeed returned and hundreds of millions of cordobas promised in compensation. Donald Spencer, reported in the News Service two weeks ago as having received over $5 million in bonds in compensation for his properties from the Office of Compensation, has also achieved the return of his stock as principal owner of the company COPA. This company built the 500 lb. bombs dropped on the civilian population in 1978 and 1979. One of Somoza's vice-presidents, Silvio Arguello Cardenal was given back the Quetzal cotton gin. Tomas Guevara Henriquez, life-time Somocista mayor of Jinotepe, achieved the return of his coffee processing plant. Two farms were returned to Anastasio Ortiz, the National Guard officer responsible for the student massacre of 1959 in Leon. A much longer list appeared in the newspaper Barricada last week under the headline "All is consummated," meaning that the compensation for or return of properties confiscated from the "close associates of Somoza" and which Sandinistas vowed to prevent has indeed happened. (Barricada, Nov. 2) Meanwhile, the National Assembly, after having approved 14 articles of the Property Bill, has tabled that legislation and is debating other measures.