Red Cross warns of persistent cholera in Mbuji-Mayi

Despite concerted efforts by relief agencies, a recurring outbreak of cholera continues to affect Kasai Oriental Province and the city of Mbuji-Mayi, in particular, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the International Federation of the Red Cross reported on Thursday. It said that in spite of considerable efforts to contain it, there had been 5,000 cases of the disease since September 2002, resulting in 263 deaths. "The endemic nature of cholera in this area and the fact that it has the potential to spread into neighbouring provinces makes it critical to immediately put in place measures to control and reduce the epidemic," the Federation said. It noted that the geographic spread of the epidemic indicated that 68.32 percent of reported cases were in Mbuji-Mayi, while 31.68 percent were from the interior of the province, particularly from diamond-mining areas, where sanitary conditions around the mines were particularly poor. It went on to say that data gathered by the local Stop Cholera Committee showed that the duration of the epidemic was unusual, as cholera outbreaks normally did not last longer than three months. It cited two reasons to explain this anomaly: first, an inadequate number of domestic latrines because of rocky ground, which made digging very difficult - according to the provincial Red Cross branch, as at January 2003, only 17.37 percent of the compounds visited had family toilets or latrines; and second, poor access to potable water: only 21.3 percent of the visited compounds had access to water distributed by Regideso, the national water company, while the rest drank water from wells or unprotected sources, such as springs located beneath housing zones where the few existing latrines were less than one metre deep. "Given the urgency of the situation, and the real potential for further deterioration", the Federation has launched an appeal for support, which would be followed by its 2004 annual appeal for the DRC, featuring a strengthened cholera project as a key component. [For the complete IFRC report and appeal, go to www.ifrc.org ]