Cholera outbreak in Congo worsens
Pastor Dale Morgan
* Cholera outbreak in Congo worsens*
22 May 2008 13:47:35 GMT
Source: IRIN
KINSHASA, 20 May 2008 (IRIN) - An outbreak of cholera in North Kivu
province, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has claimed
more sufferers in the past two weeks, medical and humanitarian officials
said.
The most severely affected areas are the health zones of Pinga and Mweso
in the upper and forested Masisi North area.
"The cholera epidemic has fluctuated in this zone but over the past
couple of weeks we have seen a dramatic rise in [the number of] cases,"
said Gaby Lumangamenga of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) in the
North Kivu capital, Goma.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) in Goma, 12 deaths were reported in Pinga over just one week in
late April, while 159 cases were recorded between 5 and 11 May.
Lumangamenga said Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Solidarités had
built water chlorination facilities and latrines but the problem
persisted because the residents did not like to drink chlorinated water.
"They say it has a disagreeable smell and persist in drinking water from
rivers," Lumangamenga said.
He said although there was a high number of cholera cases in Mweso,
fatalities were relatively low because MSF-Belgium had opened a clinic
there.
North Kivu's Masisi area has, in the past, been the theatre of fighting
between several armed groups that have continued to wage war in eastern
Congo, despite a 2003 peace agreement that restored calm to most parts
of the country.
Caroline Draveny, the OCHA spokeswoman in Goma, said the area was still
tense despite there having been no fighting in the past month.
OCHA estimates that Mweso has up to 70,000 internally displaced persons
(IDPs) in Kachuga, Kalembe and Mweso villages, which have a combined
population of 213,000.
The fighting pits the Congolese army and the Congrès national pour la
défense du people (CNDP), a rebel group led by renegade army commander
Laurent Nkunda, who claims to be defending the rights of the Tutsi in
the country. The other armed groups include the Patriotes résistants
congolais (Pareco - of the Hunde ethnic community) and Rwandan Hutu
rebels of the Forces démocratiques pour la liberation du Rwanda (FDLR),
largely accused of being responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
CNDP and Pareco are signatories to the latest ceasefire agreed with the
government in January in Goma. However, since then, they have violated
the peace deal and have yet to be integrated into the army.
"There is still tension because the different groups do not live
together but side by side," said a humanitarian worker, working in
Masisi, who spoke on condition of anonymity.