A cholera epidemic in West Africa has killed almost 500 people out of more than 31 000 cases registered this year across the region, the United Nations World Health Organisation said on Thursday.
The highly infectious disease, which comes from contaminated water and food, causes diarrhoea, dehydration and potentially death. It has been at its worst in Guinea-Bissau with 230 deaths since June, according to officials.
Throughout a nine-country region, cholera has ”killed more than 488 people out of 31 209 cases,” John Mulangu of the WHO told a press conference in Senegal’s capital Dakar after a meeting of UN agencies, the Red Cross and non-governmental organisations.
”The figures are higher than those of 2004, partly because of population movement that has promoted the spread of the disease,” he said.
The situation in small, impoverished Guinea-Bissau saw a ”mortality rate clearly well above normal levels” and showed ”an immediate need for financial aid”, Mulangu stressed.
The affected countries under the regional OCHA watch are Senegal (almost 20 000 cases), Guinea-Bissau (about 10 500), Liberia (almost 4 000), Guinea (around 1 300), Mauritania (more than 1 000), Burkina Faso (nearly 400), Niger (almost 200 in a recent outbreak among people already stricken by famine) and Mali (more than 150). – Sapa-AFP