Floods in the north worsen cholera outbreak

A cholera outbreak in northern Ghana has intensified in the wake of two weeks of heavy flooding, relief workers and other sources told IRIN. "Our teams have recorded 1,220 cholera cases and 27 deaths in Builsa district and 81 cases and 8 deaths in Kassena Nankana District as at 12 September," Anthony Gyedu-Adomako, Secretary-General of the Ghanaian Red Cross, told IRIN. Gyedu-Adomako said the Ghanaian Red Cross was running health education programmes and helping the Ministry of Health by providing nursing care in the two districts, which are in the northeast of the country. A World Health Organisation (WHO) official in Ghana told IRIN the Ministry of Health notified WHO of a cholera outbreak in the two districts at the end of August, when approximately 200 cases had been recorded. According to local newspapers, some 320,000 people have been made homeless by the floods in northern Ghana. They say the White Volta, Red Volta and Sissili rivers have burst their banks in the Upper East region and so has the Black Volta river in Upper West. People in these areas and in parts of the Northern region are those most severely affected by the flooding. A local source told IRIN that the flooding in Ghana had been exacerbated by the opening of spillway outlets to relieve pressure in Burkina Faso's Bagre dam. Gyedu-Adomako said the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), the state body charged with coordinating the response to the flooding, made a preliminary assessment last weekend of some of the affected areas. He said NADMO would make a more detailed assessment in the coming week in collaboration with the NGO Consortium on Disaster Relief, of which the Ghanaian Red Cross is a member. Gyedu-Adomako said the provision of relief assistance had been made more difficult by the fact that roads had been damaged and bridges destroyed. "Many places are only accessible by air," he said. Another local source told IRIN the army had been helping the humanitarian effort by flying relief goods and aid workers to many areas which are inaccessible by road.