Angola cholera cases rise sharply after deadly floods
Pastor Dale Morgan
Angola cholera cases rise sharply after deadly floods*
29 Jan 2007 13:50:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Zoe Eisenstein
LUANDA, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Cholera cases have surged to "alarming"
levels in Angola after deadly floods left thousands of people without
clean drinking water and access to sewage facilities, aid workers said
on Monday.
An average of 90 cases of the potentially fatal intestinal infection are
being reported each day in the province of Luanda, which includes the
capital, compared to an average of 15 to 20 cases before heavy rains
triggered floods last week.
"There has been a five-fold increase in the number of cases in relation
to one week ago, which is a lot. Yes, it's quite alarming," said Mark
van Boekel, head of Medicins Sans Frontieres Holland in Angola.
There have been a handful of deaths, but the authorities cannot say
whether these are directly related to the recent flooding.
But with parts of Luanda, including its slums, submerged in fetid water
and more rain forecast, aid workers say the outbreak may worsen in the
coming weeks and the death toll could eclipse that of the floods, which
have killed at least 90 people.
Cholera is spread through feces-contaminated water and food and usually
marked by vomiting and acute diarrhoea. Children and the elderly are
especially vulnerable to the disease, often dying from severe
dehydration within 24 hours after infection.
An oil-rich nation that is emerging from a 27-year civil war that
shattered bridges, roads and drainage systems, Angola has faced a number
of cholera outbreaks in recent years. More than 1,800 people died last
year in its worst outbreak in a decade.
Millions of Angolans lack access to health care, including the
antibiotics and rehydration salts that easily treat cholera, and the
country routinely struggles to get basic medical supplies to areas cut
off by poor or non-existent roads.
One-quarter of all children in the former Portuguese colony, sub-Saharan
Africa's second largest oil producer after Nigeria, do not survive to
their fifth birthday.
With the end of the civil war in 2002 and the beginning of an
oil-financed reconstruction boom, Angola's leaders have said they are
committed to improving basic health care and developing other social
programmes.
But the government has been criticised for reacting slowly to the
cholera epidemic and the health sector as a whole.
"They are making billions in oil revenues, but their general priorities
do not seem to include health," one foreign aid worker told Reuters on
condition of anonymity.
But others credit the government in Luanda for making progress, albeit
slowly, in the health sector and learning from its most recent brush
with cholera. Van Boekel noted that Angola seemed to be better equipped
now than it was last year.
"There is a better preparedness among the population, the international
agencies and authorities," he said.
"(But) in poor neighbourhoods there isn't always potable water to drink
and the sanitary conditions are bad. So the preparedness doesn't change
the cause, it only improves the response," he added.
Fears of a jump in cholera cases are not confined to Angola.
Authorities in Mozambique and Zambia have said they are concerned about
outbreaks of the disease after floods prompted thousands to flee to
crowded emergency camps and unsheltered higher ground in the two
southern African nations.