Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
WEST AFRICA: Cholera - what's working?
FREETOWN/DAKAR, 10 July 2012 (IRIN) - After years of cyclical cholera outbreaks in West Africa, water and sanitation standards are still notoriously low in most of the affected countries, but in some areas the cholera response is working better now than in the past. IRIN spoke to governments and aid agencies about innovations and traditional wisdom for preventing cholera.
By the end of June 2012, cholera had killed nearly 200 people in West Africa and infected 10,330 according to the UN Children?s Fund (UNICEF). Numbers are continuing to rise, particularly in the Sahel zone, where a recent upsurge has killed 60 people and infected 2,800. On 2 July 34 cases and two deaths - both children - were reported in northern Mali near Gao, on the edge of the Niger River.
Elsewhere in West Africa case numbers are rising, but are lower than this time in 2011, when 82,070 people had contracted cholera, or in 2010 when 60,000 West Africans in the Lake Chad Basin, which includes parts of Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon, were infected.
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The victims: children
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In some areas - such as Niger?s regions along the Niger River - the Ministry of Health reports nearly three times as many cholera patients this year as in 2011.
An estimated 400,000 children in Niger are suffering from severe malnutrition this year. ?A child below the age of five who has recovered from severe and acute malnutrition will be back for treatment in a matter of days or weeks if he or she is drinking contaminated water,? Guido Borghese, UNICEF?s advisor on Child Survival and Development, said in a communiqu?.
The transmitters: fish
Cholera spreads along West Africa?s waterways - coastal regions, rivers and lakes - where busy fishing and trade routes run. The coast is ?like a cholera highway?, said Bellet, as are major waterways such as the Niger River, which flows through Guinea, Mali, Niger, Benin and Nigeria.
The bacteria build up under the scales of fish and are often still there if the fish on sale in the markets have not been properly cleaned.
Given the role of women role in cleaning, descaling, smoking and selling fish in most of West Africa, it is they and their children who are particularly vulnerable to infection. Children make up some 80 percent of the cases in Sierra Leone?s Port Loko district, according to UNICEF.
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Priorities
As well as improving surveillance, better understanding the region?s cholera hot spots, and speedier government declarations of an outbreak, in a region with high volumes of cross-border trade and people-movement, coordinated prevention and response now needs to be a priority, say aid agencies.
...
Full text:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95837/WEST-AFRICA-Cholera-what-s-working
FREETOWN/DAKAR, 10 July 2012 (IRIN) - After years of cyclical cholera outbreaks in West Africa, water and sanitation standards are still notoriously low in most of the affected countries, but in some areas the cholera response is working better now than in the past. IRIN spoke to governments and aid agencies about innovations and traditional wisdom for preventing cholera.
By the end of June 2012, cholera had killed nearly 200 people in West Africa and infected 10,330 according to the UN Children?s Fund (UNICEF). Numbers are continuing to rise, particularly in the Sahel zone, where a recent upsurge has killed 60 people and infected 2,800. On 2 July 34 cases and two deaths - both children - were reported in northern Mali near Gao, on the edge of the Niger River.
Elsewhere in West Africa case numbers are rising, but are lower than this time in 2011, when 82,070 people had contracted cholera, or in 2010 when 60,000 West Africans in the Lake Chad Basin, which includes parts of Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon, were infected.
...
The victims: children
...
In some areas - such as Niger?s regions along the Niger River - the Ministry of Health reports nearly three times as many cholera patients this year as in 2011.
An estimated 400,000 children in Niger are suffering from severe malnutrition this year. ?A child below the age of five who has recovered from severe and acute malnutrition will be back for treatment in a matter of days or weeks if he or she is drinking contaminated water,? Guido Borghese, UNICEF?s advisor on Child Survival and Development, said in a communiqu?.
The transmitters: fish
Cholera spreads along West Africa?s waterways - coastal regions, rivers and lakes - where busy fishing and trade routes run. The coast is ?like a cholera highway?, said Bellet, as are major waterways such as the Niger River, which flows through Guinea, Mali, Niger, Benin and Nigeria.
The bacteria build up under the scales of fish and are often still there if the fish on sale in the markets have not been properly cleaned.
Given the role of women role in cleaning, descaling, smoking and selling fish in most of West Africa, it is they and their children who are particularly vulnerable to infection. Children make up some 80 percent of the cases in Sierra Leone?s Port Loko district, according to UNICEF.
...
Priorities
As well as improving surveillance, better understanding the region?s cholera hot spots, and speedier government declarations of an outbreak, in a region with high volumes of cross-border trade and people-movement, coordinated prevention and response now needs to be a priority, say aid agencies.
...
Full text:
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95837/WEST-AFRICA-Cholera-what-s-working