Cholera Hits Eastern Uganda
Cholera crisis in eastern Uganda. New Vision photograph.
The Ministry of Health and World Health Organization announced a high cholera alert for Manafwa, a district in eastern Uganda southeast of Mbale.
86 people in the district have been diagnosed with cholera, due to heavy rains, flooding, and a lack of pit latrines. 3 deaths have occurred so far, and over 200,000 thousand people in the district are at risk.
Cholera is spread by consumption of food or water that is contaminated with feces. Only 45 percent of residents in the district have access to toilets, according to reporting by New Vision. 95 percent of people in the district depend on the River Manafwa for drinking and wash water, but the river has been contaminated. Submerged pit latrines and people without toilets attempting to relieve themselves near the shores are a major problem.
In Bududa, the district where devastating landslides recently occurred, health officials are reporting cases of diarrhea from a camp for displaced people that lacks clean drinking water and firewood for cooking food. Health officials are concerned that a cholera outbreak will spread to Bududa.
As the bodies of the 300 people and many livestock killed by the landslides decompose, bacteria might leak into nearby rivers and contaminate people’s drinking and bathing water. Anyone relying on the Manafwa River is at a serious health risk, according to ministry of health spokesman Paul Kagwa.
A UNICEF representative told the Daily Monitor that “the control of cholera will be our priority.”
According to the World Health Organization, cholera has been endemic in Uganda since a major outbreak in 1997. The first cholera epidemic in Uganda was in 1979.
This content is from Healthy East Africa, a product of Africa Connections, a news company that runs Ugandans Abroad. For more health news, click here.
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