Disease stalks Horn of Africa after severe floods
Pastor Dale Morgan
Disease stalks Horn of Africa after severe floods*
POSTED: 1555 GMT (2355 HKT), December 8, 2006
GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) -- Up to 1.8 million people are at risk
from cholera, measles, malaria and other killer diseases following major
floods across the Horn of Africa, the World Health Organization (W.H.O.)
said on Friday.
The United Nations agency said it was deeply concerned about health
conditions in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia after heavy rains in October
and November damaged water and sanitation systems there and forced
people into crowded living spaces.
At least 150 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced
by the worst floods for years across the region.
Reports of diarrheal diseases, malaria, and acute respiratory infections
have risen two- to three-fold, the W.H.O. said, without giving figures.
Cholera has been reported in the region and would spread if floods
continue into early 2007, it added.
"We are already experiencing a serious situation where people are dying
from diseases related to the water and sanitation situation. Malaria
will become a very serious problem in the weeks to come," David Okello,
the W.H.O.'s representative in Kenya, said in a statement.
Many health problems are endemic to the region, which is especially
vulnerable because of its low vaccination coverage rates, W.H.O.
spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told journalists in Geneva. It also lacks
laboratory facilities to quickly confirm the outbreak of epidemic-prone
diseases.
The UNHCR refugee agency said that with the help of the U.S. military it
would make an emergency airdrop of 240 tons of aid to help thousands of
people in the flooded Dadaab refugee camps in northern Kenya.
The aid would include plastic sheets, blankets and mosquito nets for the
camp's 130,000 mainly Somali refugees who have been cut off for weeks.
UNICEF, the United Nations children's agency, said on Friday it urgently
needed $24.2 million to provide emergency health, nutrition, water and
other supplies to the Horn of Africa after the floods.
It also cited concern about tension between Somalia and Ethiopia which
it said could trigger widespread displacement within Somalia and into
flood-affected northeastern Kenya, further exacerbating health and
humanitarian problems.