Cholera Outbreaks - Global

[eladdie]

Cholera - Zanzibar - (Indian Ocean)

Cholera - Zanzibar - (Indian Ocean)

Zanzibar

Cholera has claimed a fifth victim in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Zanzibar, increasing the fatality to five with 40 people having fallen prey to the epidemic.

Zanzibar Health Minister Sultan Mohamed Mughery told local reporters on Sunday that the latest victim had died in the Unguja Southern Region.

The official attributed the spread of the disease to poor sanitation and polluted drinking water in the isles.

Of the infected, 30 are residents in the Pemba island while the rest are residents in the Unguja island. Pemba and Unguja are the two main islands of the archipelago.

Cholera, an epidemic disease usually erupting during the rainy season in tropical regions, is a water-born disease whose symptoms include vomiting and diarrhea that can cause death if not properly treated immediately.

Zanzibar experienced two severe eruptions of cholera in 1978 and 1999 when hundreds of people died of the epidemic.
http://english.people.com.cn/200604/03/eng20060403_255438.html

 

[Snowy Owl]

Cholera - Angola - Benguela: Over 1,400 Cases of Cholera Registered

Cholera - Angola - Benguela: Over 1,400 Cases of Cholera Registered

Angola

Angola: Benguela: Over 1,400 Cases of Cholera Registered
Angola Press Agency (Luanda)
http://allafrica.com/stories/200604110377.html

Benguela

Around 132 people died of the cholera disease out of the 1,432 cases recorded in the southwestern Benguela Province since the outbreak in March 10, in this region.
According to a press communiqué,132 people died in the province in consequence of the cholera epidemics, informing that the Health Provincial Board notified 683 cases in the Catumbela commune, Lobito municipality, with 52 deaths, while in Benguela municipality were registered 507 cases and 61 deaths.
The press note also says the health services exhort the population to observe elementary preventive measures against the disease, as well as avoid the utilization of bathing-places in some areas.
​

 

[DB]

Re: Cholera sickens 20,000 Angolans, kills 941

Re: Cholera sickens 20,000 Angolans, kills 941

Angola

<TABLE style="DIRECTION: ltr" width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-05-13-voa25.cfm
UNICEF: Cholera Epidemic Worsening in Angola
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top>By Lisa Schlein
Geneva
13 May 2006
</TD><TD vAlign=top align=left></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
The United Nations Children's Fund says a cholera epidemic in Angola is worsening and more than a third of the victims are children under the age of five. Official figures put the number of cholera cases at more than 32,000, with nearly 1,200 deaths.
Even in the best of times, Angola has one of the highest under-five mortality rates in the world. UNICEF reports malaria kills 23 percent of Angola's children every year, followed by diarrheal diseases, which account for 18 percent of child deaths.
UNICEF spokesman Damien Personnaz says the current cholera epidemic is taking an especially heavy toll on children.
"UNICEF has done some preliminary estimates that 35 percent of the cholera victims are children below five years old, which means that basically we have a total number of 11,000 cases of cholera among children below five years old in Angola," he said.
Personnaz says children are particularly vulnerable to dehydration from diarrhea caused by cholera. He says if it is not treated promptly, they will die within two to three days of getting the disease, whereas, an adult can last four or five days without treatment.
The Angola government reports about 500 new cases every day. UNICEF says those numbers are expected to rise during the rainy season. It warns that well over 70,000 people could get infected by then if action to contain the outbreak is not sustained.
The epidemic started in February in the capital, Luanda. Cholera is largely due to poor sanitation, a shortage of safe drinking water, bad hygiene and overcrowding. Personnaz says Angola's 27-year-old civil war destroyed the country's water and sanitation facilities. He says few systems have been rebuilt. This has led to the rapid spread of the disease throughout the country.
"Now, basically, all the provinces are affected, and it can even cross the borders," he added. "To this extent, we can fear that the border with neighboring DRC, Congo and Zambia can also be a problem. So, we do hope that the disease will be contained by then."
UNICEF, the World Health Organization and private aid agencies such as Doctors Without Borders are working together to come to grips with this crisis. They have created special areas to isolate sick people so they don't spread the disease to the general public.
The groups are providing antibiotics, distributing oral rehydration salts and water purification tablets. They are also mounting information campaigns to teach people how to prevent cholera and what to do if someone gets the disease.

 

[DB]

Re: Cholera sickens 32,000 Angolans, kills 1,200

Re: Cholera sickens 32,000 Angolans, kills 1,200

Angola

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/HMYT-6PUKNF?OpenDocument
Angola cholera outbreak defies control efforts

LUANDA, May 16 (Reuters) - Angola's cholera epidemic appears to have reached a deadly plateau, defying months of work by government and non-governmental organisations to quash the worst outbreak of the disease in more than a decade.
New figures released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday put the death toll since mid-February at 1,230 out of a total of 34,418 cases, with 588 new cases and 10 deaths reported in the last 24 hours alone.
Health experts said the outbreak was logging new victims at a steady -- if high -- rate, a signal the epidemic was still working its way through the vast southwest African nation, thanks in large part to a massive road construction programme that has made it easier for people, and the disease, to travel.
"There is a plateau for sure -- (but) this is stable," WHO analysts Jordi Sacristan told Reuters.
Officials say heavy rains have combined with Angola's multi-billion-dollar infrastructure improvement programme to create fertile ground for a cholera epidemic as travel routes reopen after the end of the country's civil war in 2002.
"Many people fled to Luanda (from rural regions) during the war looking for security. They created slums where the disease spreads fast. We need information, sanitation and education to reorganise," Angola deputy health minister Jose Van Dunem said.
"There's not enough drinking water in either quality or quantity," Van Dunem said.
Health workers said heavy rains had left large, stagnant puddles across Angola's many slums, increasing the danger of a disease which spreads primarily through overcrowding and poor hygiene.

 

[DB]

Re: Cholera sickens 32,000 Angolans, kills 1,200

Re: Cholera sickens 32,000 Angolans, kills 1,200

Angola

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L18508397.htm
GENEVA, May 18 (Reuters) - A cholera epidemic in Angola is spreading rapidly, with 546 new cases including 31 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday.


The epidemic, which has killed nearly 1,300 people in three months, is infecting an average of about 600 people each day, about half of the cases reported in the capital Luanda, it said.


"In the last 24 hours, 546 new cases including 31 deaths have been reported," the United Nations agency said in an update on its site www.who.int which put the known death toll at 1,298.


The water-borne disease, which erupted in mid-February, has been found in 11 of 18 provinces of the country, emerging from decades of civil war which devastated water and sanitation systems, the WHO said.


Claire-Lise Chaignat, WHO's global cholera coordinator, told Reuters: "It is huge outbreak.


"But in certain provinces, in Luanda for example, we have the feeling that the first peak is behind us, there has been a decline in the number of cases," she said.


This was due to less rain, which spreads the disease, according to the Swiss expert. "But that doesn't mean it won't peak again," she added.
Cholera, an acute intestinal infection spread by contaminated water or food, causes vomiting and acute diarrhoea that can lead to dehydration and death within 24 hours if not treated swiftly with antibiotics and oral rehydration salts.


"With cholera you have to react very quickly, you can't wait two days for treatment, you will be dead by then. If you have to walk two days to a health care facility, with vomiting and watery diarrhoea, you probably can't make it," Chaignat said.


As the disease had not appeared in Angola for years, the population has only partial immunity, leaving people much more vulnerable, the expert said.


Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) charged on Wednesday that Angola -- sub-Saharan Africa's second largest oil producer behind Nigeria -- had responded slowly to the epidemic and should spend more of its wealth on saving victims' lives.


The medical charity also said that deaths from cholera were probably two to three times more than the reported toll.

 

[DB]

Re: Cholera sickens 32,000 Angolans, kills 1,200

Re: Cholera sickens 32,000 Angolans, kills 1,200

Angola

It is interesting that Angola has not announced any Bird Flu.

What is also concerning is that in 1918 the Spanish Flu presented like Cholera.

While I am not saying this outbreak is Bird Flu, it does open the possiblity that H5N1 cases could be intermixed with the Cholera outbreak and they would never been seen.


http://www.whale.to/v/spanish.html
There is evidence that the Spanish Flu did have hemorrhagic symptoms.
Vickie Menear, MD and homeopath, was doing some research on Flu for her
class at Hahnemann Homeopathic College, Albany, California, when she ran
into a great deal of literature that supports this possibility. I called
her and she said that if you had questions, she'd be happy too answer them.
Again, Email me and I'll give you her phone number.
In the meantime, let me quote some of her source material. If you
are interested in following up this new "lead" on the Spanish Flu epidemic,
this is a good place to start. Here are the references:

1. THE PLAGUE OF THE SPANISH LADY: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919
by Richard Collier, Atheneum Publishing, New York, 1974

QUOTE:

Page 7:
"It began, undramatically, after a two-day incubation period, with a cough.
Next there was pain--behind the eyes, in the ears, in the lumbar region.
Soon a drowsy numbness invaded the body, and fervor set in; often the
temperature soared to 104 degrees F. The pulse was thready and unstable;
the victim's tongue was thickly coated...every mortal fiber ached
indescribably--the throat, the head, the naso-pharynx.."

Page 35:
"But which disease? All over the world, doctors were noting symptoms so at
variance with the spring epidemic --and with any known form of influenza
--that it might have been an unknown sickness...that each time a man so
much as stirred on his pillow, serous fluid poured from his mouth and
nostrils...a burning pain above the diaphragm...the frontal headache that
recalled Typhoid fever...painfully congested conjunctivae...coated tongues
with bright red tips...another maverick symptoms: what doctors term 'silent
lungs', an absence of breath so total he was convinced his stethoscope had
given out."

Page 37:
"...case after case of leucopenia--a kind of leukaemia in reverse, where
the white corpuscles of the blood are strangely reduced in numbers...lost
her sight within six days...gangrene of the sexual organs...afflicted by
diarrhoea so intense he endured twenty movements a day....On one factor, at
least, all doctors were agreed: only in Cholera did the collapse come so
suddenly that most victims could fix the precise moment when they fell...a
man staggering home at a run, handkerchief clapped to a bleeding nose--but
most often this killer-virus struck like a lightning-bolt."

Page 69:
"One moment she could see her face, mirrored opaquely in a bowl of water
that her mother held (she was having Epistaxis, nosebleed while in the
throes of the Spanish Flu). Next instant it had vanished, blotted from
view by the blood pouring from her mouth and nose....Dr. Hennewig arrived.
His verdict..."I have seen many such cases -- without the haemorrhage she
would not have recovered."

Page 69:
"Later, Germany's Public Health Administration was to report that in many
areas Epistaxis affected up to HALF of all influenza victims--often as much
as a pint of blood at a time."

Page 69:
"Major Charles Mix, of the Army Medical Corps, saw a greater significance.
Among doughboys at Camp Mills, New York, Mix noted interference with the
passage of blood from the heart's right ventricle to the lungs caused
enough damming back of venous blood 'to make possible nasal haemorrhage on
the slightest occasion'. Many were even then cyanotic, and some, despite
this haemorrhage, developed pneumonia..."

Page 220-221:
"....why should the sickness affect so many organs of the body normally
untouched?...most often the disease resembled encephalitis, with the
patient lapsing into a coma...a dilation of the heart but even of fatty
degeneration...a cough so intense that it ruptured the muscles of a
soldier's rectum...retention of urine...puffy faces and swollen ankles of
acute nephritis...the lungs were the organs most vitally affected...a
patient's face so contorted in death that even close friends couldn't
recognize him...and autopsy surgeons were encountering what one doctor
termed 'a pathological nightmare'; lungs up to six times their normal
weight, looking 'like melted red currant jelly.'"

2. EPIDEMIC AND PEACE, 1918 by Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., Greenwood Press,
Westport, CT, London, England

Page 4:
"The Surgeon General's office dispatched Colonel Welch to Devens (Army
base)...included in that group Colonel Victor C. Vaughan, ex-president of
the American Medical Association; Rufus Cole of the Rockefeller Institute;
and Simeon Walbach of the Harvard Medical School....(p.7)...Welch and his
colleagues...glanced in at the wards with their lines of cots and
prostrated soldiers, whose linens were often stained with bloody sputum and
the sudden nosebleeds that were symptoms of the Spanish Influenza..."

Page 7:
"In the open chest of a cadaver Welch saw the blue, swollen lungs of a
Spanish Influenza...Cause of death? That at least was clear: what in a
healthy man are the lightest parts of his body, the lungs, were in this
cadaver two sacks filled with a thin, bloody, frothy fluid.....The lungs of
those who died quickly, sometimes only 48 hours after the first ache and
cough, were such as he had never seen before...Their most conspicuous
feature was the enormous quantity of thin, bloody fluid. It oozed out of
their lungs sectioned for examination, and in the large air passages
leading to the throat it mixed with air in a bloody froth. As rigor mortis
set in, the fluid often poured from the nose and stained the body
wrappings."

Page 8:
"If there was anyone at Devens (the Army base) who could be depended upon
as a pillar of strength, it was this safe of Johns Hopkins. But when he
saw the wet lungs of influenza pneumonia in the fall of 1918, the pillar
trembled. "This must be some new kind of infection...or plague."

Dr. Menear has a list of other books and articles supporting the
hemorrhagic symptoms of the Spanish Flu. Should you want the list
published here, on OUTBREAK, I'll be happy to call her and get it sent to
you. She also has information on Crotalus Horridus being utilized as a
remedy during the pandemic.
I can only note that the symptoms of the 1918 "influenza" and the
Ebola of 1995, have marked similarities .
My percentages of homeopathic remedies used versus traditional
medicine (drugs) during 1918 influenza come from an article that appeared
in Homeopathy Today, January, 1990. It was the following and I'll quote:

"Dean W.A. Pearson of Philadelphia (Hahnemann College) collected 26,795
cases of (1918) influenza treated by homeopathic physicians with a
mortality rate of 1.05 percent while the average old school (traditional
medicine/drugs) mortality was 30 percent."

I'd like to credit Julian Winston, New Zealand, one of our foremost
homeopathic archives experts, and homeopathy@dungeon.com, in which this
article appeared.
This article was originally published by the Journal of the
American Institute for Homeopathy, May, 1921 and I'd like to share the
entire article and you can draw your own conclusions. This article was a
culling of information after the Spanish Flu epidemic had occurred. In it,
you will find mentioned other remedies, other than Crotalus Horridus, that
were used to save lives--Gelsemium, Eupatorium Perfoliatum, and Bryonia.
Unfortunately, I wasn't given the space at this website to share this
information with you before this.

 

[magmum]

Re: Cholera - Zanzibar - (Indian Ocean)

Re: Cholera - Zanzibar - (Indian Ocean)

Zanzibar

Hi, would you let me know the status of the cholera outbreak in Zanzibar. i expect to be there on 20th June. Thanks!

 

[DB]

Re: Cholera sickens 32,000 Angolans, kills 1,200

Re: Cholera sickens 32,000 Angolans, kills 1,200

Angola

http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0606/334251.html
LISBON, Portugal (AP) - An outbreak of cholera has killed 1,576 people since February, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. As of May 31, the African country had reported a total of 41,475 cases in 13 of its 18 provinces.
<!PARA1!>
The overall fatality rate stood at 3.8 percent, far above the 1 percent the WHO considers average. Although current trends showed a decline in most provinces, a daily incidence of around 250-300 cases was still being reported, it said.

Cholera is transmitted through contaminated water and is linked to poor hygiene, overcrowding and inadequate sanitation. It can be treated easily, but is a major killer in developing countries.
<!PARA3!>
Angola's public infrastructure, including health care, crumbled during a two-decade civil war that ended in 2002.
<!PARA4!>
About a quarter of the 4 million people in Luanda, the capital, live in shantytowns.

 

[ruthbeme]

Re: Cholera Outbreaks - Global

Source: Government of Angola
Date: 11 Nov 2006


<!--toolbar--><!--firstLine-->Hu?la: Lubango, Quipungo register 62 new cholera cases


<!--docTitle--><!--Attention ligne utilis?e pour l'impression-->
<!--Attention ligne utilis?e pour l'impression-->
Lubango, 11/11 - At least sixty two new cholera cases were registered in the last 24 hours by Hu?la health authorities, in Lubango and Quipungo municipalities, killing one person.
The fact was revealed to ANGOP by the acting public health department chief, F`lix Janu rio, adding that from these cases, 61 occurred in Lubango, killing one person and one case in Quipungo district without claiming any live.
According to F`lix Janu rio, currently 102 patients are hospitalised in "Doutor Agostinho Neto" Central Hospital, while other 106 were discharged on the same period. Since the start of cholera outbreak in April, a total of 1,891 cases were registered, thus claiming 122 lives.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EKOI-6VH34J?OpenDocument

 

[ruthbeme]

Re: Cholera Outbreaks - Global

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=4 width=480 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=headline1 colSpan=2>KCC seeks WHO help on cholera</TD></TR><TR><TD>Friday, 24th November, 2006</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
By Florence Nakaayi and Tony Barigye

Sixty-eight cholera cases have been reported in Kampala.
One death was reported by the city medical officer on Thursday.
Reports from Makindye Division indicate that three other people also died.

The out break of the epidemic has forced city authorities to seek the intervention of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Red Cross.

The worsening situation has also prompted medical facilitators to put in place contingency plans to contain the situation.

Mulago Hospital has reserved Ward 4A for cholera patients.
KCC has also closed the maternity ward at Kawaala Health Centre to accommodate the victims.

The most affected areas are Kisenyi in Kampala Central Division, Kawempe Division, Makindye I, Katwe I, Katwe II, Bukasa and Salaama in Makindye Division.

The district director of health services, Mesarch Mubiru, said a cholera camp would be opened at Mulago Hospital for all patients to be at one treatment centre.

?The UNICEF and the Red Cross have assisted us with four tents and an ambulance respectively,? he said, adding, ?We still need more money for logistics and the medial team.

He said cholera cases were bound to increase due to the rain season.

Mubiru urged residents to improve on their hygiene.

When The New Vision visited Mulago Hospital yesterday, Ward4A was filled with dehydrated and underweight patients.

No other persons were allowed to get closer to the patients apart from the health workers.
http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/13/534077

 

[ruthbeme]

Re: Cholera Outbreaks - Global

More cholera deaths in Angola
24/11/2006 21:05 - (SA)
Luanda - A cholera epidemic in Angola, one of Africa's worst, has claimed 2 537 lives since February, but is gradually abating, said a health official on Friday.
"We are still registering at least four to five new cases every day in Luanda," the southern African nation's seaside capital, said provincial director of public health Vita Vemba.
"There have been no fatalities among the new cases that are coming up," said Vemba, adding that 61 143 people had been affected so far.
The number of new infections in Luanda had fallen during the past month after steps were taken to clean up shantytowns and provide the residents with drinking water, said Vemba.
The epidemic has spread across sprawling the country, whose infrastructure has been ravaged by a 27-year civil war and where drinking water and proper sanitation are luxuries. The deadly but easily treatable water-borne disease broke out in Luanda's northern slum of Boa Vista.
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,9294,2-11-1447_2035543,00.html

 

[JJackson]

Re: Cholera Outbreaks - Global

Cholera crisis on Somali border As if the poor Somalis had not got enough problems with the invasion/occupation of their country.

 

[Commonground]

Re: Cholera Outbreaks - Global

Scroll at bottom of screen:

Around 21 people was killed AND 60 OTHER people were treated in the HOSPITAL AS A RESULT OF being affected by the PLAGUE ATTACK of CHOLERA in the Philippines SOUTH

http://www.metrotvnews.com/

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Cholera Outbreaks - Global

[Notice to readers: (*) omitted texts about current political turmoil in the region. IOH. For complete article, please follow the link below.]

Cholera breaks out among Pakistan displaced--ICRC

05 Sep 2008 15:52:15 GMT - Source: Reuters - By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, Sept 5 (Reuters) -

Cholera has broken out among some of up to 300,000 people in northwestern Pakistan who have fled fighting (...)(*), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday.

(...)

The neutral humanitarian agency's top priority is providing clean water and sanitation to tens of thousands who fled Bajaur for nearby Lower Dir district since the conflict intensified four weeks ago.

"Cholera has started in certain areas...It is a major concern," Pascal Cuttat, head of ICRC's delegation in Pakistan, told a news briefing.

"The most immediate need remains access to clean water and sanitation. No food, health care or shelter is going to be of any good if people get water-borne diseases," he said.

Cholera, transmitted mainly through contaminated water and food, was already endemic in the area, he said. It begins with acute watery diarrhoea that in severe cases can cause death by dehydration and kidney failure within hours.

The ICRC had no figures for the number of cases of cholera, which Cuttat said had been confirmed in local laboratories by Pakistani doctors.

The World Health Organisation said it had no immediate information on any cholera outbreaks in Pakistan.

About 80 percent of an estimated 50,000 displaced in hot and overcrowded makeshift camps or schools in Lower Dir, are women and children, according to Cuttat.

Most men stayed in the villages to guard their property and harvest crops.

Another 20,000 people have fled more recent fighting (...).

"Tens of thousands of affected people are on the move in one way or another," Cuttat said, stressing that numbers fluctuated.

"It is a very volatile situation. It is not going away."

The ICRC deploys 400 local aid workers and 50 expatriates throughout Pakistan, (...).

(...).

(Editing by Keith Weir)
-
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L550045.htm
------

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Cholera Outbreaks - Global

Cholera kills one, infects six in Iraq - official

07 Sep 2008 19:30:30 GMT - Source: Reuters

BAGHDAD, Sept 7 (Reuters) -

Seven cases of cholera have been diagnosed in Iraq in the past two days, including one fatality, a senior health official said on Sunday.

Scarcity of water during Iraq's scorching summer forces more people to drink water from unsafe sources, the official said.

More than 4,000 cases of cholera, which can kill victims with sudden severe diarrhoea, were diagnosed in Iraq last year.

Iraq's General Director of Public Health Ihsan Jaafar said as long as there was scarcity of water, cholera would remain a problem.

A boy died in southern Maysan province, five of the infected are from the Abu Ghraib district of western Baghdad and one from Rusafa in the east of the city.

Last year's outbreak, in which at least 24 died, was mostly in the northern cities of Kirkuk and Sulaimaniya.

Cholera is characterised in its most severe form by a sudden onset of acute watery diarrhoea that can cause death by severe dehydration and kidney failure within hours.

It is mainly transmitted through contaminated water and food. Water and sewage treatment is a perennial challenge in Iraq, where an overhaul of decrepit public works has been hindered by years of war and neglect.

Jaafar said the Health Ministry was trying to control cholera's spread by early diagnosis of infection, distributing water sterilisation tablets and through a public awareness campaign.

(Reporting by Aseel Kami: Editing by Janet Lawrence)
-
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L7554653.htm
--------

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Cholera Outbreaks - Global

Cholera prompts state of emergency in Iraq province

08 Sep 2008 14:12:32 GMT - Source: Reuters - (Adds WHO comment, Baghdad official on death toll)

HILLA, Iraq, Sept 8 (Reuters) -

Officials in Iraq's Babil province declared a state of emergency on Monday after an outbreak of cholera in the area.

Cholera has killed eight people and infected 20 others in the past three days in Babil, south of Baghdad, officials said at a news conference. Ihsan Jaafar, general director of public health at the Health Ministry in Baghdad, said only two fatalities had been confirmed.

Some 500 other people in the province were suspected to have contracted the disease, which can sometimes kill victims with sudden severe diarrhoea, the local officials said.

A representative for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Iraq said the body was still gathering information and would announce its findings soon.

Ambulances patrolled Babil markets warning people through loudspeakers to be careful about where they bought their food and drink and how it was prepared, a Reuters witness said. It was unclear what other measures the state of emergency entailed.

Scarcity of water during Iraq's scorching summer forces many to drink water from unsafe sources.

More than 4,000 cases of cholera were confirmed in Iraq last year, killing at least 24.

The disease then jumped into neighbouring Iran, the WHO said at the time.

Babil borders Baghdad, where Jaafar on Sunday said six people had been diagnosed with cholera.

The Babil victims brought total infections in Iraq in the past week to 27, including three fatalities, he said.

The dead include a boy who died of the disease in southern Maysan province, where the government said on Monday it had dispatched a delegation from the Environment Ministry to combat its spread.

Cholera is characterised in its most severe form by a sudden onset of acute watery diarrhoea that can sometimes cause death by severe dehydration and kidney failure within hours. It is mainly transmitted through contaminated water and food.

Water and sewage are a perennial challenge in Iraq, where war and neglect have hindered the overhaul of public works.

Iraq is trying to control cholera by early diagnosis, distributing sterilisation tablets and an awareness campaign.
(Reporting by Aws Qusay and Aseel Kami; Writing by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Catherine Evans)
-
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L878812.htm
-------

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Cholera Outbreaks - Global

IRAQ: Cholera cases reach 172, health ministry says [IRIN]

IRAQ: Cholera cases reach 172, health ministry says

BAGHDAD, 21 September 2008 (IRIN) -

A cholera outbreak is continuing to spread in central and southern Iraq with 65 new cases registered over the past week, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 172, a health ministry spokesman said on 20 September.


"We have registered so far 172 confirmed cases of cholera in eight provinces: Babil 104 cases, Baghdad 42 cases, Karbala 17 cases, Basra three cases, Najaf two cases, Anbar two cases, Diyala one case and Maysan one case," said Ihsan Jaafar, director-general of the public health directorate and spokesman for the ministry's cholera control unit.

Dozens of suspected cases are being tested, Jaafar added.

"We are still fighting the disease in the affected areas. We have no problem with the [availability of] medicines and the movement of our medical teams but we can't say that we will put an end to this disease as it is endemic in Iraq and the reasons behind it are still around," he told IRIN.

Despite 40 cases having been diagnosed in Babil Province last week, Jaafar said that ongoing awareness campaigns have helped limit watery diarrhoea cases, often associated with cholera.

He anticipated that new cholera cases would continue to occur in the country until the end of October as the disease's peak is in August, September and October.

According to Richard Finkelstein, the author of the Cholera, Vibrio cholerae O1 and O139, and Other Pathogenic Vibrios section in the Medical Microbiology textbook, the disease occurs primarily during summer, possibly reflecting the increased presence of the organism in the marine environment during those months, as well as the enhanced opportunity for it to multiply in unrefrigerated foods.

Since the outbreak began in late August, five fatalities have been registered so far: a 10-year-old girl and a 61-year-old man in Babil province; a three-year-old boy in Maysan; and an adult and child in Baghdad.

Babil and Maysan are about 100km and 350km south of Baghdad respectively.

The Iraqi Health Ministry and the World Health Organization have blamed the country's rundown water and sanitation infrastructure for the cholera outbreak.

Cholera is a gastro-intestinal disease typically spread by contaminated water. It can cause severe diarrhoea, which in extreme cases can lead to fatal dehydration. It can be prevented by treating drinking water with chlorine and by improving hygiene conditions.
--
​

<cite cite="http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=80505">IRIN Middle East | Middle East | Iraq | IRAQ: Cholera cases reach 172, health ministry says | Health & Nutrition | News Item</cite>

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Cholera Outbreaks - Global

Source: http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=3715

Doctors warn of looming health disaster in Zim cities
by Wayne Mafaro Friday 26 September 2008

HARARE ? A Zimbabwe doctors? organisation has warned of a looming health disaster in the country?s cities and said a new power-sharing government to be formed by the country?s rival political leaders should act urgently to provide clean water in urban areas.

The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) said in statement this week that a government body charged with providing water in urban areas had failed to do so forcing many resident to rely on unclean water.

?This coupled with a breakdown in the sanitation system (burst sewage pipes and lack of refuse collection and proper disposal) is threatening the health of millions of Zimbabweans,? the ZADHR said in a statement this week.

The doctors group spoke as the Ministry of Health confirmed the death of three people this week because of cholera in Harare?s dormitory city of Chitungwiza.

The deaths bring to 16 the number of people who have succumbed to Cholera since an outbreak of the water borne disease in Chitungiwza last month.

The ZADHR said in addition to the outbreak of cholera in Chitungwiza, public health facilities in the capital Harare and in the second largest city of Bulawayo were also recording numerous cases of diarrhea on a daily basis. It was most likely that the number of deaths due to cholera in Chitungwiza may be much higher than what had been, the group said.

?The new government must address this crisis as a matter of urgency. It is a matter which cannot wait for the resolution of differences and sticking issues,? the ZADHR said referring to a deadlock over distribution of Cabinet posts that has stalled formation of the new power-sharing government.

President Robert Mugabe, opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara signed an agreement to form a power-sharing government to tackle Zimbabwe?s long running political and economic crisis.

But the three leaders have so far failed to appoint a new Cabinet to run the country because they cannot agree on how to share key posts in the new government.

Zimbabwe?s recession marked by the world?s highest inflation of more than 11 million percent, has hastened the deterioration of key infrastructure needed for economic activity and public health such as adequate power and water supplies.

The country public health sector, once lauded as one of the best in Africa, has been one of the hardest hit by the economic crisis with the government short of cash to import essential medicines and equipment, while the country has suffered the worst brain drain of doctors, nurses and other professionals seeking better opportunities abroad. ? ZimOnline

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Cholera Outbreaks - Global

Source: http://www.fingaz.co.zw/story.aspx?stid=814

(Zimbabwe) Disaster looms
Nelson Chenga & Charles Rukuni, Staff Reporters

Doctors warn water crisis now at tipping point

A HEALTH disaster of unimaginable proportions looms in Harare after the water situation deteriorated even further this week, sparking fresh health concerns as an outbreak of cholera in Chitungwiza claimed two more lives this week bringing to 13 the total number of deaths so far.

The water crisis in Harare and in Chitungwiza, approximately 30 kilometres south of the capital, has reached critical levels forcing doctors and the cities' residents associations to exert pressure on government to put its house in order and avoid continued loss of lives.
Faced with severe shortages of foreign currency required to import water purification chemicals and spares to repair the ageing water infrastructure, the government has all but admitted it does not have the capacity to deal with the problem.
The confusion over Cabinet appointments has not helped the situation.
The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) this week said a serious health crisis looms in urban areas owing to the severe shortage of running water.
Failure by the state-run Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) to treat and pump adequate supplies of water has left most urban homes dry and forced residents to rely on unsafe sources of water.
This, coupled with a breakdown in the sanitation system (burst sewage pipes and lack of refuse collection and proper disposal) is threatening the health of millions of Zimbabweans at a time when the health delivery system is least prepared to deal with any major outbreak of diseases due to the brain drain and the shortage of drugs.
Water and sanitation experts, including the few engineers left at ZINWA, have warned of the impending health and environmental crisis but their appeals have fallen on deaf ears.
ZINWA has since admitted it has not been treating the more than 300 megalitres of waste produced in the capital, which is simply being discharged into Harare's main source of raw water, Lake Chivero.
The untreated waste water has contaminated more than half of Lake Chivero. As a result the water treatment bill has spiked to such levels that ZINWA is now unable to procure the enormous amount of chemicals needed to treat the murky Chivero water for safe human consumption.
Water experts have also said the treatment of Harare water has become complicated because the waste water discharges were highly contaminated with industrial toxins, which need complex methods to remove, thus exposing consumers to health complications other than cholera.
"The new government must address this crisis as a matter of urgency. It is a matter, which cannot wait for resolution of differences or 'sticking points'. Public service provision has been inadequate for several years and requires urgent and comprehensive remedial action," said ZADHR.
The association told The Financial Gazette this week that access to safe drinking water and to adequate sanitation are basic human rights and not privileges.
"They (access to sanitation and water) are determinants of health, which if not made available can result in outbreaks of diarrhoea, cholera and dysentery that are life threatening.
"Lives have already been lost to cholera in Chitungwiza and health centres in Harare and Bulawayo are burdened by numerous cases of diarrhoea on a daily basis. It is highly likely that the number of deaths in Chitungwiza, currently reported at 13 individuals, is much higher, and that this is but the tip of an iceberg of much more morbidity. This has not been communicated to the public," said the association.
Outbreaks of cholera at any time are symptomatic of serious structural problems within the system of public works. They are more common when rains have resulted in flooding or overload of drainage systems.
An outbreak in the middle of the dry season is particularly disturbing.
This week Health Minister David Parirenyatwa urged urbanites to be on high alert in the wake of the outbreak of cholera in Chitungwiza.
"I would like to urge those who might be experiencing watery diarrhoea, vomiting and rapid severe dehydration to quickly report to any clinic," the daily Herald quoted the Minister as saying.
But the association of doctors yesterday said it was not good enough for the Health Ministry to respond to disease outbreak only after it has occurred.
"It is paramount that it (Ministry of Health) works in conjunction with other ministries concerned, such as that responsible for water resources, and ZINWA, to ensure that disease is prevented and that Zimbabwean's right to the highest attainable state of physical and mental well being is respected," it said.
Meanwhile, water problems have once again come to the fore in Bulawayo following reports that staff from ZINWA who are supposed to maintain boreholes at the Nyamandlovu aquifer, one of the city's lifelines, have abandoned the site.
The council only has 20 months of water supply left and has been banking on rehabilitating boreholes at Nyamandlovu. The council had asked ZINWA to allow it to lease an agreed number of boreholes, which the council would maintain but ZINWA has refused to commit itself.
The council says it has the spare parts and the staff to maintain the boreholes as well as well-wishers who are prepared to fund the operations.
ZINWA, which was allowed technically to take over water supplies in the city but never did so, is reported to have lost a lot of its staff. Its maintenance team at Nyamandlovu was reported to have left the site.
The parastatal has been facing persistent cash shortages with staff going for months without pay.
The mayor Clr Thaba Moyo was concerned about the latest development because the council could not rehabilitate the boreholes without consulting ZINWA because it owned the boreholes.
Bulawayo has been facing perennial water problems because its supply dams are now too small for the city of more than one million people. No new dam has been built for the city over the past 30 years.
The city was looking forward to the Zambezi Water Project but it has also been bogged down by bureaucracy and lack of funds.
Some city residents have been querying how the project will proceed now that its chairman, Dumiso Dabengwa, is out of mainline politics.
Dabengwa left ZANU-PF to join Mavambo Project before the March elections and has since abandoned the project.

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Cholera Outbreaks - Global

AFGHANISTAN: El-Tor cholera leaves 17 dead [IRIN]

AFGHANISTAN: El-Tor cholera leaves 17 dead

KABUL, 7 October 2008 (IRIN) -

An outbreak of El Tor cholera in northern, eastern and southeastern Afghanistan has killed at least 17 people - mostly women and children - in the past few weeks, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) said on 6 October.


Over 1,100 people with diarrhoea and vomiting caused by the outbreak have received treatment at medical facilities in 13 of the country's 34 provinces.

The worst affected provinces are Laghman, Nooristan, and Nangarhar (in the east); Samangan and Faryab (north); and Nimruz (west), the MoPH said.

"It's not a classic cholera which quickly turns into an epidemic," Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the MoPH, told IRIN.

El Tor (a strain of the bacterium vibrio cholerae) is less fatal, and controllable, Fahim said.Health workers said the use of contaminated water and poor sanitation had prompted the outbreak.

Less than 24 percent of Afghanistan's estimated 26.6 million people have access to improved drinking water and only 12 percent have access to improved sanitation, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

A severe drought affecting large swaths of the country has made life very difficult for many communities, forcing people to use unsafe water for drinking, washing and cooking.

Outbreak under control in nine provinces
The MoPH said teams of health workers with medication have been sent to the affected provinces to help local authorities control the spread of the bacteria.

"The disease has been controlled in nine provinces and similar efforts are currently under way in four others," Fahim said.

Water chlorination in affected areas is a top priority, as is the boosting of public awareness about personal sanitation and communal hygiene.

"We have also dispatched sachets of oral rehydration salts and other medicines to provide quick oral rehydration therapy to those in need," Fahim said.

Whilst not as life-threatening as other cholera strains, the El Tor bacterium remains for longer in the body and is capable of host-to-host transmission, according to health experts.

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Theme(s): (IRIN) Health & Nutrition
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<cite cite="http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=80777">IRIN Asia | Asia | Afghanistan | AFGHANISTAN: El-Tor cholera leaves 17 dead | Health & Nutrition | News Item</cite>