Cholera epidemic hits new peak as chlorination of wells starts

The number of new cholera cases reported in the Liberian capital Monrovia peaked at more than 1,200 a week in mid-August, but has since started to decline, Omar Khatib, the World Health Organization (WHO) representative in the country said on Monday. “Between 11-17 August, 1,203 new cholera cases were reported. Since then, the situation has stabilized. But there is still an epidemic,” he told IRIN. Last Saturday relief workers began chlorinating 5,000 wells, which are the main source of drinking water in this rundown city of more than one million people, to reduce the spread of cholera and other water-borne diseases. But Khatib said the choldera epidemic, while still serious, had started to decline before this programme got fully under way. He quoted officials who are compiling statistics for the latest two-week period as saying the preliminary indications were that the number of new cases had dropped. Cholera is a fast spreading, bacterial intestinal infection that causes accute diarrhea. It is mainly spread through contaminated water and food. Relief workers said the heavy rains currently pounding Monrovia could also be helping to spread the disease by washing contaminated materials and garbage into the wells. WHO,working in conjunction with UNICEF, is coordinating 108 water and sanitation workers hired by various non-governmental organisations to chlorinate all the main wells in Monrovia once every four days. The war-torn city hosts an estimated 300,000 displaced civilians who are crammed into school buildings, government offices, churches and the Samuel Doe sports stadium. Most of these shelters lack proper sanitation and clean water supply. Monrovia's water supply system was damaged at the start of Liberia's 14-year-old civil war and is now only able to provide piped water to about 300,000 people in Bushrod Island and a few other northwestern suburbs. The inhabitants of other areas of the capital rely mainly on wells and water from deep boreholes which is trucked to shelters for displaced people by relief agencies. Khatib said WHO was investigating reports of a cholera outbreak in camps for displaced people in the port city of Buchanan, 120 km southeast of Monrovia, and Tubmanburg, 60 km northwest of the capital. Buchanan is controlled by the rebel Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), while Tubmanburg is occupied by the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel group. “We took samples from Buchanan on Friday and Tubmanburg on Saturday. We are not yet sure that there is a cholera epidemic there, but there is definitely extensive diarrhea,” Khatib said. WHO, the Liberian Ministry of Health and UNICEF, are conducting a measles vaccination campaign in Tubmanburg. This is the first mass immunization following a cessation of hostilities in early August. It is targetted at children outside Monrovia, many of whom have never received any vaccinations. Khatib said following the collapse of Liberia’s national immunization service, measles vaccination activities only reached 29 percent of the country. Some parts of northwestern Liberia had not had immunizations since 2000, he noted. Relief workers said some 12,000 displaced civilians who fled last week’s fighting between government and LURD forces near Gbarnga, 140 km north of Monrovia were being accommodated in public buildings, schools and a compound belonging to the Lutheran Church in Totota, a town 30 km down the main road to the capital. They told IRIN that these buildings had become severely overcrowded, with about 50 people trying to sleep in each school classroom. Although the fighting around Gbarnga subsided several days ago, the influx of scared civilians was continuing, they added. “The new arrivals narrated horrendous stories of their ordeal at the hands of government soldiers in the bushes. Many had walked for three weeks, were severely exhausted and had no access to a proper meal for several days, including children,” one relief worker said.