Cholera suspected in large Gulu IDP camp

At least one person died and eight were hospitalized at St. Mary's Lacor missionary hospital in northern Uganda following a suspected outbreak of cholera in Pabbo camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Gulu District, a health official said. "A cholera task force has been formed at the subcounty, zonal and sub-zonal levels and they have been sensitized on what causes cholera and its preventive measures. [It will] identify cases in the community for referral [and] sensitise the community," Vincent Oryem, a medical doctor working for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Gulu told IRIN on Friday. Oryem said the first reported case was a young man who was admitted in Pabbo health centre on 7 October, but died the next day. Since then, all suspected cases had been admitted at the health centre where six beds had been preserved for cholera patients. Stool samples, he added, had been sent to the National Reference Laboratory at the Institute of Public Health in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, for further analysis. Health education programmes had also started on the local FM radio stations. Pedro Amolat, head of the World Food Programme sub-regional office in Gulu told IRIN that the camp lacked adequate clean water, although it housed 60,000 people, and had poor sanitation facilities. "NGOs are still analysing the water sources to find out the magnitude of the problem," Amolat said. Located about 20 km north of Gulu town, Pabbo is one of the oldest such settlements in northern Uganda. The camp sprang up in 1986 when the northern Uganda-based insurgency against President Yoweri Museveni's newly installed National Resistance Movement government started. At the time, many of the inhabitants of the new camp feared reprisals against the Acholis, who had dominated the past government administrations. The reprisals never came; instead, life in the camp has turned into an avoidance of the brutality by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The rebels, who claim to be fighting to bring down Museveni's government and replace it with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments, have repeatedly targeted civilians living in the very region the LRA claims to be liberating. Over the years, the camp has also suffered several fires, which have razed down several thousand huts and left thousands of IDPs homeless. Following the fires, the Ugandan government announced a move to decongest the camp by moving some internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Pabbo to newer, more spaced out settlements. Like Pabbo, many of the new camps are overcrowded and lack adequate health, water and sanitation facilities. The camps are also exposed to frequent attacks by the LRA. Christopher Ojera, Pabbo sub-county chairperson, told IRIN that camp residents had first spotted suspected cholera cases on 11 October. He said a special area had been opened, where suspected cases will be quarantined.