Dysentery kills hundreds in Somalia
Pastor Dale Morgan
Dysentery kills hundreds in Somalia*
20 Mar 2007 15:01:41 GMT
Source: Reuters
NAIROBI, March 20 (Reuters) - Acute watery Dysentery in Somalia has
killed hundreds of people this year, the Minister of Health said on
Tuesday as aid agencies warned the nation was in the midst of a cholera
outbreak.
"The death toll is in the hundreds (but) we don't believe there is
cholera in the country," Health Minister Qamar Adan Ali told Reuters by
telephone from Baidoa in southern Somalia.
The World Health Organisation said in a report this week acute watery
diarrhoea has killed 251 people and had infected 5,602 since January.
Aid agencies say there is an epidemic of cholera -- a bacterial disease
spread mainly through contaminated water -- in the Horn of Africa
nation. Late last year, Somalia was ravaged by the worst flooding in
decades.
"There has been a continued increase in cholera cases reported in and
around Mogadishu. Over two hundred cases have been reported by one
hospital," said David Gilmour, Somalia country director for aid agency
CARE International.
"More worryingly, until there is unrestricted humanitarian access across
Somalia it is difficult to know the true scale of this and other
problems which are going unreported," he said.
Insecurity after a war between Islamists and government troops backed by
Ethiopian armour has made humanitarian missions all but impossible --
never the easiest work in a nation in anarchy since a 1991 coup ended
central rule.
Floods, insecurity and war-damaged infrastructure combine to raise the
risk of cholera in Africa. The disease has infected some 12,000 people
already in 2007, mainly in a belt spreading from Angola to Congo.
(Additional reporting by Sahal Abdulle in Mogadishu)