Somalia: Cholera Kills 25 in South

[Snowy Owl]

Somalia: Cholera Kills 25 in South
Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
http://allafrica.com/stories/200702280329.html
Aweys Osman Yusuf, Mogadishu​

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A number of children have reportedly died of cholera in Lower Shabelle provincial district of Afgoi, about 30 km south of Mogadishu.

Aweys Sheik Osman, a medical officer in Baladul Amin village, has told Shabelle that at least 25 children, most of them under the age of 5, died of the watery diarrhea in different settlements and villages in the district on Tuesday, while a larger number of children were ailing form the plague.

He said, "Doctors in the villages and settlements in the district can not give the proper medicine to the patients because medicines are very scarce at the moment."

The disease still rages in Jubba province, southern Somalia, while inhabitants also complain of hardship.

At least 24 people among them children and older women have died in Kismayu, about 500 km south of the capital Mogadishu on 16 February.

Doctors in Kismayu say the number of ailing patients from the disease is alarmingly high.

The disease is also reported to prevail in other districts in southern Somalia where people are rushing their sick children to hospitals for treatment.

The disease is believed to have claimed the lives of hundreds of children in southern and central provinces of Somalia where repeated droughts, wars and floods have annihilated the livelihoods of nearly two million pastoral and animal herding communities in the country.