More than 300 dead in cholera epidemic

Deaths in the cholera epidemic raging in tiny Guinea-Bissau have passed the 300 mark, prompting authorities to ban the sale of drinks and food by street vendors as well as forbid all traditional ceremonies.

The health ministry said on Wednesday that the epidemic has claimed 305 lives and stricken 19,054 people in four months. Sources in the ministry said that despite measures to halt the spread, the four-month-old epidemic was gaining ground.

Cholera is a water-borne disease that surfaces in parts of West Africa at each rainy season when wells and sewage spill over. The intestinal infection, caused by contaminated food or water, can kill within 24 hours by inducing severe vomiting and diarrhoea.

The Guinea-Bissau government late last week imposed a ban on all traditional rites and ceremonies for at least 30 days, as large gatherings are a major conduit for the highly contagious disease.

More than half the cases have occurred in the capital, Bissau, a city of 300,000 built on low-lying land on the banks of a muddy estuary.

Endemic in some countries in the region, cholera hit the capital of neighbouring Senegal in late 2004 for the first time in eight years and has remained entrenched. With unusually heavy rains in Dakar this year, the Senegalese health ministry by 2 October had reported 25,573 cases, including 352 deaths over the year.

And with 60,000 people made homeless by flooding in August and September and the rain continuing, Senegal in just the first three days of this week registered 433 cases and 12 deaths, the ministry reported.

The mortality rate is higher still in impoverished Guinea-Bissau, where a poor infrastructure - stemming from the 1998-1999 civil war and subsequent instability - makes treatment difficult.

“The epidemic has not abated yet,” said Claire-Lise Chaignat, the leading cholera expert at the UN World Health Organisation. “With the rains continuing it could get worse.”

Chaignat said improved public health and hygiene measures were vital to combat the disease across the region where several countries have been hit.

“We must prepare for next year,” she told IRIN by telephone from Geneva. “We need to train health workers and inform the public about the basic hygiene needed to combat cholera.”

With Muslims currently observing the holy month of Ramadan, extra care must be taken around communal meals, she said. “We must be vigilant during the month of Ramadan or there could be a resurgence."