ZAMBIA: Cholera hits Kaputa

The Zambian health ministry has declared the northern town of Kaputa a cholera infected area following an increase in the number of patients reporting to health centres. Aid workers told IRIN that although the numbers of cases are not high, there has been a steady stream of patients being treated in the town's health centres over the past two weeks. "There have been 122 cholera cases since March with two deaths in the town of Kaputa," aid workers said. However, there have been no cases reported from the refugee transit centres in the town. The aid workers said people's movement in and out of the town has been restricted in order to control the spread of the disease. This measure, the aid workers added, is accompanied by cholera awareness programmes as well as medicines and medical teams dispatched to monitor the situation. In the meantime, a UNHCR spokesman told IRIN that so far 9,000 out of the estimated 20,000 registered DRC refugees have been moved from Kaputa to the Mwange camp in Mporokoso, about 260 km south. "We hope to have moved the rest of the refugees to Mwange within the next week or two," Dominik Bartsch said.