Lack of clean water blamed for cholera outbreak which kills 29

Cholera has killed at least 29 people in southeast Liberia, where heavy rains likely contaminated a stream that is the sole source of water for inhabitants, a World Health Organisation official said on Thursday. About 100 cases have been reported near Butaw town in Sinoe County, Peter Clement, a WHO epidemiologist, said by telephone from the capital, Monrovia. Clement said a stream is the only source of water in the area for bathing, washing, and drinking. Heavy rains clearly washed faecal matter into the stream, he said. Sanitation facilities are poor aswell, Clement said, and there is only one hand pump in the area for nearly 13,000 people. Officials from WHO and the government health ministry are scheduled to set off for the area on Friday to assess the situation. “One of our concerns is whether bodies have been disposed of properly,” Clement said. Those affected by the cholera outbreak are mostly illegal miners living in a settlement just outside Butaw, where people from all over the country have migrated seeking their fortune in nearby diamond mines. Word of the cholera outbreak broke on 2 August, Clement said. He noted that the deaths occurred before any intervention began and that no deaths have been reported this week. Medecins Sans Frontieres set up a cholera unit in Butaw on 7 August.