Cholera death toll continues to rise

The number of cholera deaths continues to rise in Guinea this year as state radio reported a new flood of cases in the Forest Region of the southeast.

State radio on Wednesday reported the deaths of 16 persons in the Kissidougou prefecture, 500 km southwest of the capital Conakry, and local clinics have registered a further 173 cases of the water borne disease.

According to UN figures released last month, 111 people had died following outbreaks of the highly contagious disease in the prefectures of Gueckedou, Kissidougou, N’zerekore and Lola – all in the Forest Region close to the Liberian border.

Cholera is usually transmitted by drinking water or eating food contaminated with faecal matter. It is highly contagious and causes acute diarrhoea and often vomiting. If untreated, cholera can kill within days. However simple and cheap re-hydration salts and fluids nearly always result in a cure.

Cholera is a recurring problem in much of sub-Saharan West Africa and cases spike with the annual rains that generally fall between June and September. Last year unusually heavy rains resulted in a massive regional cholera epidemic that sickened over 42,000 and killed hundreds.

This year, cholera has already been confirmed in Niger, as well as Guinea.

Guinea’s Forest Region shelters tens of thousands of refugees, most from Liberia but some from Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire. According to the UN, Lola prefecture where one of the largest camps for Liberian refugees is based, has had continuous cases of cholera since 2005.

Fode Camara, head doctor responsible for the afflicted region, said on state radio that the situation was “very worrying”. Aid organisation Plan International, has said it will provide some treatments and establish three new clinics in the region to help tackle the cholera outbreak.

Local authorities have launched an information campaign to inform residents of this poor farming region to protect themselves from cholera by boiling drinking water and washing hands frequently.

Cholera epidemics have instilled fear in populations for centuries and for most of the developed world the disease has been consigned to the history books. However, poor countries with inadequate sanitation and low access to clean drinking water are highly vulnerable to large-scale epidemics.

Africa is the world's poorest continent, and according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) recorded 87 percent of cholera cases worldwide in 2000.

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