Cholera outbreak confirmed but under control - WHO

An outbreak of cholera killed 11 people in southern Chad earlier this month, but the outbreak has been brought under control following repairs to the water supply system in the town of Moundou, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. Dr Abdoulaye Yam, the leader of a WHO team which investigated an outbreak of accute diarrhoea in Moundou, an industrial town 600 km south of the capital N'Djamena, said the disease had been confirmed as cholera. He told IRIN the Chad Ministry of Health had recorded 131 cases of the disease in Moundou since early January after the main pump at the town's waterworks broke down forcing local people to drink polluted well and river water instead. So far 11 people had died of cholera, he added. However he said the number of new cases was decreasing rapidly. While 118 cholera cases were recorded between 4-12 January, only 13 cases were detected the following week. The WHO official said local wells and latrines had been chlorinated, a public hygene campaign had been launched and Moundou's water supply system had been repaired, removing the main source of infection. “The water system was repaired last week”, he told IRIN by telephone from N'Djamena. Yam led a WHO mission to Moundou, which lies in the cotton growing region of southern Chad, from 9-12 January. The team conducted a public information campaign with the help of local churches and mosques to urge local people to improve their hygiene. They urged residents to wash their hands regularly, disinfect kitchen and drinking utensils and fetch water from potable sources to prevent the spread of cholera. This highly contagious water-borne disease causes a rapid loss of body fluids and can be fatal unless treated quickly.