Costa Rica fighting malaria outbreak in east coast

Costa Rica is fighting an outbreak of malaria on its east coast, authorities have said.

Health officials carried out house-to-house checks on Saturday in Costa Rican Caribbean towns in search of malaria cases, after detecting an outbreak that has infected 60 people.

Many of the infections were detected in Limon (26 cases) and in the neighbouring canton of Pococi (32). No deaths have been reported, although the disease is potentially fatal. 75 percent of these cases were reported during the last two weeks.