Floods 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 eight 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. [See separate item titled 'Floods in the north worsen cholera outbreak']