Cholera epidemic hits seond northern region

Written by Halim Douda

Monday, 23 August 2010 16:00

GAROUA—Cholera killed three people in Garoua last Friday, just two days after the health ministry announced that a much bigger outbreak in the Far North region had been contained.

At least 17 people were also reported sick in the North regional capital as the water-linked disease surfaced in a second region, moving south of the country.

It was early to say if the outbreak in the North was linked to the outbreak that has already killed 222 people in the neighbouring Far North region.

An outbreak in Garoua in 2009 killed 50 people and there were fears the latest outbreak could spread rapidly across the region, with rain pounding the region.

Authorities said all resources were being pulled to deal with both situations, which were being complicated by reports of new cases in Maroua as recent as Thursday, August 19.

Cases were reported in three districts of the thickly populated city of Garoua. Three people died shortly after coming to the hospital, health workers said.

Local authorities said they were taking measures to contain the outbreak, reactivity cholera control committees in the city and urging the public to improve sanitation and hygiene.

Both occurrences of the disease have been blamed on poor sanitation, bad water quality and generally poor hygienic ways of life.

The minister of public health Andre Mama Fouda said last Wednesday that up to 86 percent of the cholera patients in the Far North had recovered and returned home.

At least nine subdivisions in the region of more than three million people were affected, rendering a total of 2,849 people sick, the minister told a news conference in Yaounde.

The outbreak, which made its first appearance on May 6, is the worst to hit the country in ten years.

So far, 2,460 patients have returned home with only 167 still in hospital.

There have been fears the outbreak could be spreading across the border, with cases reported in neighbouring Nigeria, where some 50 people have already died.

Relief groups say Chad, with similar or worse conditions as northern Cameroon, is also at risk.

Cholera is an acute intestinal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholera, according to the WHO.

Symptoms include painless, watery diarrhoea that can quickly lead to severe dehydration and death if treatment is not promptly given. Vomiting also occurs in most patients.

“Everything is being done to completely eradicate the disease as soon as possible,” said the minister of communication, Issa Tchiroma on Sunday.

The outbreaks in northern Cameroon and Nigeria showed a global resurgence of the disease, said a WHO official.

It showed that people in poor communities were still not having access to clean drinking water, said Claire-Lise Chaignat, coordinator of the special group for the fight against cholera at WHO.