Suspected cholera claims 56 lives - WHO

Suspected cholera was continuing to take its toll in northern Afghanistan, a WHO official in Islamabad told IRIN on Monday. The comment follows a statement by an opposition Northern Alliance spokesman on 22 July saying another 16 people, many of them children, had died of the disease overnight in the remote Aqkupruk district of Balkh Province, bringing the death toll to 139 in just one week. The WHO official confirmed to IRIN that 56 of the deaths had resulted from suspected cholera. Despite media reports of higher death figures, she said it was difficult at this point to confirm whether these deaths were due to the disease. She added: “These deaths could be from other causes due to deteriorating conditions.” Making an urgent appeal for more assistance, Mohammad Ashraf Nadim, the spokesman for the opposition Northern Alliance, said, “We can do very little to help the cholera victims,” as quoted in an Associated Press (AP) report on Monday. “There are no clinics and doctors in Aqkupruk, nor can the poor people afford to buy medicines on their own,” he added. A single dose of medicine, including oral rehydration salts (ORS) and antibiotics, costs US $3, an enormous sum in a country where the average monthly income is barely US $9. Scores of people were suffering from diarrhoea, vomiting and fever - the symptoms of cholera, the AP report added. When left untreated, cholera can be lethal in a weakened community. According to WHO, when cholera occurs in an unprepared community, the case-fatality rate may be as high as 50 percent - usually because there are no facilities for treatment, or because treatment is given too late. By contrast, a well-organised response in a country with a well established diarrhoeal disease control programme can limit the case-fatality rate to less than one percent. Most cases of diarrhoea caused by cholera can be treated adequately by giving a solution of ORS. During an epidemic, 80 to 90 percent of diarrhoea patients can be treated by oral rehydration alone, but patients who become severely dehydrated must be given intravenous fluids. Asked to comment on what action had been taken, the WHO official confirmed that an emergency task force comprising members of the Taliban health ministry, WHO, UNICEF, and MSF, had been sent to the region. “We believe the death rate will come down dramatically, as we have sent doctors and medicine to the region,” the official explained. Aqkupruk, a town of some 70,000 inhabitants, is close to the front line, where opposition and Taliban forces are fighting for control of Balkh Province, 390 km north of the capital, Kabul. “People are approaching us for help, but we are unable to do anything,” Nadim reportedly said. “We appeal to international aid groups to rush [in] emergency assistance,” he added. After more than 20 years of war and the worst drought in 30 years, Afghanistan has been experiencing outbreaks of cholera every year, particularly in the summer, as a result of poor sanitation and lack of clean drinking water.