Cameroon : Cholera outbreak kills 597 people

[Shiloh]

Source: http://af.reuters.com/article/topNew...5950E420091006

Cholera outbreak kills 15 in Cameroon
Tue Oct 6, 2009 11:06am GMT

YAOUNDE (Reuters) - A cholera outbreak in northern Cameroon has killed 15 people, state media reported on Tuesday.

Cameroonian authorities are taking measures to contain the epidemic, which was brought in from neighboring Nigeria, state radio and the official Cameroon Tribune said.

"The disease was imported from neighbouring Nigeria by a lady who visited the country recently," the Tribune said. "She died after suffering from diarrhea and vomiting and her dresses were washed in a stream used by local inhabitants, thereby contaminating everybody."

Cholera is a perenial disease in the region, where access to potable water is limited.

[Shiloh]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills 15 in Cameroon

Source: http://www.news24.com/Content/Africa...1_in_Cameroon_

Cholera kills 51 in Cameroon
2009-10-15 11:31

Yaounde - A cholera outbreak in northern Cameroon last month killed 51 people, a public health ministry source and national radio said on Wednesday.

"The latest report in our possession shows 23 deaths in the far north region where 144 cases of cholera were registered in the hospital," a ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

According to national public radio, Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV), the illness also killed 28 people in the neighbouring northern region where 152 cases were recorded. The radio station quoted another ministry official.

In 2004, at least 100 people died in an outbreak in southern Douala, the country's economic capital.

Cholera is a water-borne disease that can also be transmitted by food that has been in contact with sewage.

It causes serious diarrhoea and vomiting leading to dehydration. With a short incubation period, it can be fatal if not treated in time.

- SAPA

[Pathfinder]

Cholera outbreak kills 77 in northern Cameroon

Cholera outbreak kills 77 in northern Cameroon

Source: Reuters - AlertNet
Date: 26 Jul 2010

<!-- START BOTTOM Attachments links -->
<!-- END BOTTOM Attachments links -->
<!--Attention ligne utilis?e pour l'impression-->
YAOUNDE, July 26 (Reuters) - Cholera has killed 77 people in northern Cameroon since early June, the government said on Monday, raising concern that the worst epidemic since 2004 may spread into neighbouring Nigeria and Chad.

Cholera, a disease generally spread through food and water contaminated with bacteria, often strikes the central African country where less than half the population has access to potable water, according to the United Nations.

Cameroon Health Minister Mama Fouda called on people in the region to be careful and report suspected cases immediately.

"Minimum hygiene and sanitation practices should be respected. Disinfect drinking water sources, boil all drinking water, wash hands before eating, use latrines and stop defecating in the public," he said in a statement.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said there was a risk of the outbreak, the worst since 100 people died of the disease in the economic capital Douala in 2004, spreading fast.

"There is the fear that if nothing is done urgently, the epidemic might expand rapidly with uncalculated consequences in Cameroon and neighbouring countries like Nigeria and Chad," an official said on condition of anonymity.
(Reporting by Tansa Musa; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Mark Heinrich)

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/ACIO-87QHFN?OpenDocument

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills 77 in northern Cameroon

Cholera kills 85 in Cameroon - A cholera epidemic has killed 85 people in communities in northern Cameroon, state radio reported Wednesday, quoting health authorities.

Some 1,175 cases have already been recorded, and there are fears the disease could spread due to the heavy rainfall in the region.

Twelve health districts are affected by the epidemic, with Mokolo recording the highest number of deaths (40).

According to the official responsible of regional health in the Far North, Dr. Rebecca Ndjao, cases of cholera have tripled when compared to last.

But she assured that the health services were providing free treatment for all affected citizens.

Yaounde - Pana 28/07/2010

http://www.afriquejet.com/news/africa-news/cameroon:-cholera-kills-85-in-cameroon-2010072853580.html

[Pathfinder]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills more than 100 people in northern Cameroon

Scores die of cholera in Cameroon

By the CNN Wire Staff<SCRIPT type=text/javascript>cnnAuthor = "By the CNN Wire Staff";</SCRIPT>
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript>if(location.hostname.indexOf( 'edition.' ) > -1) {document.write('July 30, 2010 -- Updated 0945 GMT (1745 HKT)');} else {document.write('July 30, 2010 5:45 a.m. EDT');}</SCRIPT>July 30, 2010 -- Updated 0945 GMT (1745 HKT)


(CNN) -- More than 100 people have died of cholera in Cameroon, according to Joseph Beti Assomo, a regional governor.

The deaths occurred in the Far North region of northern Cameroon, and the fatalities come since a cholera outbreak warning in June.

More than 600 people have been stricken with the water-borne disease, the governor said, but a local non-governmental organization, Cameroon Health, said more than twice that number -- 1,500 people -- are sick

...

Read more:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/07/29/cameroon.cholera.deaths/index.html?eref=edition_africa&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fedition_africa+%28RSS%3A+Africa%29#fbid=tY3XvfGuYJA

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills more than 100 people in northern Cameroon

CAMEROON: Biggest cholera outbreak "in at least 10 years"

Photo: Reinnier Kaz?/IRIN
Child receiving care for cholera in a classroom set up to treat patients in the village of Sirak, Cameroon's Extreme North region

MAROUA, 3 August 2010 (IRIN) - Cholera has killed at least 94 people in northern Cameroon and is spreading, in what health officials say is the most severe outbreak in years.

"We are used to seeing cholera here during the rainy season, but we don't understand what's happening this year," Ku?t? Foti? Yves, health director in the district of Moloko, told IRIN. "We have not seen an outbreak of this magnitude in at least 10 years."

Moloko has had more than half the region's cases ? 773 as of 3 August. "We are seeing some 30 new cases every day," said Ku?t? Foti?. By the end of July some 1,300 cases had been recorded in Cameroon?s Extreme North region.

Cameroon is one of several countries across the region where flooding this year has killed many and destroyed homes, livestock and crops.

Cholera is commonly called "the disease of poverty", and Ku?t? Foti? said: "Poverty is absolutely the foremost cause here ? people do not have the means to observe even a minimum of good hygiene. You can tell people all you want to wash their hands with soap before eating, but what if they don't have money to buy soap?"

Health workers in northern Cameroon said a lack of access to latrines and safe drinking water was contributing to the spread of infectious disease in the region.

Water shortages are common in the north, and the existing wells cannot provide enough water ? only 30 percent of people in rural Cameroon have access to safe water, and just 15 percent to sanitation facilities, according to a 2009 report by UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Cameroon.

"Generally, people do not have toilets here," director of the Moloko district hospital, Pierre Kollo, told IRIN. "They defecate in the open, flies are everywhere, and food in the markets is not properly protected."

Treatment

He said health workers were being sent to villages with medicines, saline solution and other supplies, to limit the movement of infected people. Health workers said the Health Ministry, UNICEF and the Red Cross were providing supplies.

Cholera treatment is being provided free of charge, with the support of UNICEF, the Red Cross, the World Health Organization and UN Population Fund, health officials said.


IRIN

In the village of Sirak the public school ? currently unoccupied as students are on holiday ? has been transformed into a cholera treatment centre. C?lestine Wassouo, one of three nurses manning the centre, told IRIN they were receiving at least five new cases every day.

The centre is currently short of bleach ? used as a disinfectant ? and supplies for intravenous drips. There is also no electricity in the village. "We get by with flashlights and lanterns," Wassouo told IRIN.

Rebecca Djao, Extreme North region health director, said about 60 percent of the deaths recorded to date had occurred in villages. She said under-nutrition was complicating the situation. "This year cholera has come during a time of food shortages ? we are in the lean period.?

Cholera outbreaks are common in northern Cameroon, but this year the epidemic has not only been more severe but also struck earlier than usual. In 2009 the first infection was recorded in September; this year the first case was detected in May, before the rains began.

Health officials said someone from a neighbouring country might have brought in the disease and somehow contaminated a water source, then the infection spread from there once the rains started.

One of Cameroon's most serious outbreaks in recent years occurred in 2004, when cholera killed 100 people in the commercial capital, Douala.

rk/np/he


Theme(s): (IRIN) Health & Nutrition, (IRIN) Water & Sanitation

[ENDS]

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=90056

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills more than 100 people in northern Cameroon

Cameroon cholera outbreak kills 155: health ministry
(AFP) ? 56 minutes ago

YAOUNDE ? More than 150 people have died since May in a cholera outbreak in northern Cameroon, the public health ministry said Tuesday.

As of Monday evening, "we have recorded 2,078 cases including 155 deaths in the Extreme North region," Professor Gervais Ondobo of the ministry told AFP.

The latest figures mark a sharp jump from the previous toll released in late July, which listed 94 deaths among around 1,300 cases.

continues at;

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iD1WWhu-mglMv98dbkrv94cPrFOg

[Pathfinder]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills 200 people in northern Cameroon

Cholera outbreak kills 200 in Cameroon
Source : CNN | Thu 12th August, 2010 15:24 GMT

Cholera has killed 200 people in the west African nation of Cameroon, the government said Thursday, and aid agencies feared the outbreak could spread to neighboring regions and nations.

Another 2,500 cases of cholera, a deadly water-borne disease, have been diagnosed in Cameroon since an outbreak warning in June.

About 70 percent of people living in the country's far north region, bordering Nigeria and Chad, do not have access to potable water, according to a Ministry of Water and Energy official.

...

http://www.citifmonline.com/site/news/news/view/9758/1

[Shiloh]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills 222 people in Cameroon

Source: http://www.afriquejet.com/news/afric...081954726.html

Cholera kills 222 in Cameroon
News - Africa news
Yaounde, Cameroon - An outbreak of cholera has killed 222 people in the Cameroonian regions of Far North, North and Adamaoua, the country's Health Minister Andre Mama Fouda announced on Wednesday.

He said the epidemic broke out on 6 May in a village in the Far North, where it was introduced by a trader back from a border market...

[tetano]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills 222 people in Cameroon

Cameroon authorities blame local brew for spread of cholera


DAKAR (AlertNet) - Bili bili, millet-based home-made brew popular in Africa, may be much cheaper than mass-produced alternatives but according to the authorities in Cameroon, its effects can be much worse than a bad hangover.

The health minister thinks the brew could be contributing to the spread of cholera, whose latest outbreak has killed more than 220 people and infected over 2,800 in the north of the central African country.

"We encourage the populations of the northern region to temporarily suspend the distribution of bili bili to the southern part of the country because this highly appreciated drink could be a vector that will take cholera to other districts and regions of the country," Andre Mama Fouda said recently on national television.

The authorities of the northern Diamare division have gone further and banned the production and sale of bili bili, warning that those who break the ban would be fined or have their production equipment destroyed.

"The liquor is produced under bad hygienic conditions using water coming from wells that are unsafe, and people consume it in groups sharing the same calabash," Ebenezer Akanga, a journalist at state-run broadcaster CRTV, told AlertNet.

"I'm sure when the outbreak is over, they'll allow people to produce it again," he said by telephone from the northern town of Maroua.

Worries over bili bili highlight the lack of clean drinking water and proper sanitation facilities, which leads to the contamination of water. These two problems are the main causes of the cholera outbreak in the region.

Less than 5 percent of the more than 3 million inhabitants of Cameroon's Far North region have access to latrines and only 30 percent enjoy clean drinking water, according to the government and the United Nations.

"If people had clean water to drink or make their local beer, proper sanitation and health centres with adequate medication and skilled professionals, this cholera outbreak would not have reached these proportions," said a U.N. official in Dakar who did not want to be named.

"The development problems of this region (west and central Africa) are such that any epidemic or natural disaster, whether small or medium, turns into a humanitarian catastrophe with death tolls, as the one we are witnessing in the north of Cameroon," the official added.

The health minister told reporters in Yaounde the government is re-training health workers on how to deal with cholera and launching campaigns to publicise the importance of hygiene in preventing further infections.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MUMA-88HVQW?OpenDocument&RSS20&RSS20=FS

[Ronan Kelly]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills 222 people in Cameroon

Cholera toll approaching 300 in CameroonBy the CNN Wire Staff
August 25, 2010 6:04 p.m. EDT

Yaounde, Cameroon (CNN) -- Cholera has killed 297 people in the west African nation of Cameroon, health officials said Wednesday.

The outbreak, which began in May, has exceeded 3,000 cases, said Dr. Eric Mintz, the leader of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's global water sanitation and hygiene epidemiology team. The agency has an office in Cameroon.

continues at; http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa...eroon.cholera/

[Shiloh]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills 297 people in Cameroon

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...XNugQD9I2C7K80

Snip:

UNICEF said Monday that more than 4,500 people have been sickened by the highly contagious infection that causes diarrhea in victims, leading to severe dehydration.

At least 331 people have died since the outbreak began in May, and officials fear it will spread further when children return to school this week after summer break.

[Shiloh]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills 356 people in Cameroon

Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english201...c_13484979.htm

Cholera outbreak kills 356 in Cameroon
English.news.cn 2010-09-08 15:43:23

YAOUNDE, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- At least 356 people have died and 5,500 others fallen ill since cholera hit Cameroon's Extreme North on May 6, according to the Public Health Ministry.

The ministry sounded alarm bells on Tuesday, warning that the disease might have spread to the capital Yaounde after one case was detected in a passenger train.

"The situation is improving day by day. We have not yet registered any new deaths in the northern parts for the last three days. However, about 100 new cases were reported in the last four days in the extreme-northern parts," Donatien Evouna, the communication official of the Public Health Ministry, told Xinhua on telephone.

Cholera has caused the highest death toll in 20 years in the Central African country...

[Shiloh]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills 372 people in Cameroon

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...WTXtwC9nz-HYnw

372 dead in Cameroon's cholera outbreak: health ministry
(AFP)

YAOUNDE ? A cholera outbreak ravaging through two regions in northern Cameroon since May has caused 372 deaths, according to a health ministry report obtained on Wednesday.

Out of 5,460 detected cases, there had been 367 deaths in the Nord region and five in the Extreme-Nord region as of Tuesday, the ministry said...

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Cholera outbreak kills 372 people in Cameroon

Cameroon: Cholera - Already 559 deaths in the country

October 22, 2010

According to the Minister of Public Health, the situation remains alarming in Yaounde and Douala. The number of deaths from cholera outbreak has reached 559 dead last October 19.

With 8227 on 8678 cases recorded in Cameroon, the Far North tops with 542 deaths against 10 north, 5 in the Littoral and 2 in the center, said yesterday the Minister of Health (MOH), Andr? Mama Fouda, during a press briefing held in Yaounde in the presence of his counterpart in the communication.

According to the minister, compared to the period from May 6 (date when the first case was recorded in the Far North) to that of 15 September when the epidemic reached its peak (it rose from 1331 cases July 31 in the Far North in 6381 cases, and 6-142 in the north to the same period, with 337 deaths in total), the epidemic in the northern part of the country - with the exception of the Adamawa where no patient has yet been reported, is currently experiencing "a gradual decline."

Read more