Government claims cholera risk eased in western camps

A major health and sanitation campaign in civilian regroupment camps in Bujumbura Rural has controlled the risk of a major cholera outbreak, according to the Burundi authorities. At Ruziba camp, just outside Bujumbura city, there had been 300 cases of cholera recorded in the past few weeks but only five deaths, according to health officials quoted by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on Tuesday. Everything was being done to provide clean, chlorinated water and health education in the camps, they added. The government declined to give a timetable for dismantling the camps, saying that people would return home as soon as security had been restored. It maintained that, with "proper partnership" from relief organisations, the camps would prove to be sustainable, at least as an interim solution, the BBC added.