Children wear face masks at a school in Antananarivo, Madagascar, to guard against the plague (Picture: AP)

A deadly airborne plague in Madagascar has now killed 143 people and infected 1,947 people and it is continuing to spread.

The outbreak, which has been described as ‘the worst in 50 years’, has yet to reach mainland Africa but nine countries have been placed on high alert.

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The plague has spread through through coughing, sneezing or spitting and can kill within 24 hours.

The World Health Organisation has earmarked £3.8m to combat disease and predicts it could take six months to stem the outbreak.


MailOnline reported that Paul Hunter, professor of health protection at the world-renowned University of East Anglia, predicted the plague would reach mainland Africa.

There are fears the plague will spread to other countries in the region (Picture: MailOnline)

He said: ‘The big anxiety is it could spread to mainland Africa, it’s not probable, but certainly possible, that might then be difficult to control.



‘If we don’t carry on doing stuff here, at one point something will happen and it will get out of hand control cause huge devastation all around the world.’

Professor Johnjoe McFadden, a molecular geneticist at Surrey University, added: ‘It’s a crisis at the moment and we don’t know how bad it’s going to get.

‘It’s a terrible disease. It’s broadly caused more deaths of humans than anything else, it’s a very deadly pathogen.’

Patients infected with the plague play cards in a treatment centre in Madagascar (Picture: Getty)

He added: ‘It is a disease of poverty where humans are being forced to live very close to rats and usually means poor sewage and poor living conditions.

‘That’s the root cause of why it’s still a problem in the world. If we got rid of rats living close enough to mankind then we wouldn’t have the disease.’

Professor McFadden warned in countries such as Madagascar ‘people often need to walk more than a day to receive proper medical treatment’.

Medical staff from Doctors Without Borders) disinfect tents where infected patients sleep (Picture: Getty Images)

The outbreak has been blamed on a massive increase of rats in the Indian Ocean island’s two major cities Antananarivo and Toamasina.

The new strain of the plague can be treated with antibiotics and the WHO cash will pay for extra medical personnel, the disinfection of buildings and fuel for ambulances.

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