Cameroon: Resurfacing Cholera Kills 50, Infects Thousands

Cameroon: Resurfacing Cholera Kills 50, Infects Thousands

By Ntaryike Divine Jr. in Douala

At least 48 people have died and over 2000 infected in a fresh cholera outbreak sweeping across Cameroon since January, according to latest statistics from the country’s Ministry of Public Health. Medics say they expect the figures to gallop further, fuelled by widespread inadequate potable water supply and poor hygienic conditions.

Government officials say the situation is particularly preoccupying in the nation’s capital Yaounde where several neighborhoods are recording surges in death toll and hospitalization. “Since the start of the year, we’ve had several cases of cholera in Yaounde and the Center Region in general. Essentially, these are cases imported from Douala. But over the last two weeks; there has been a rise in infections because our country is cholera-endemic,” Fru Angwafor III, told reporters Wednesday [16 March].

The current outburst, affecting eight of Cameroon’s ten administrative regions, comes on the back of a climaxed epidemic last year in which over 500 people perished between May and September. Officials ranked it the country’s worst cholera epidemic in fifteen years. It erupted in the country’s Far North Region, where humans and animals share the same drinking water sources, and where open defecation by inhabitants is rife.

The United Nations Development Program says less than half of Cameroon’s over 20 million inhabitants have access to safe drinking water. And the situation is especially serious in the most populated and rapidly expanding urban centers like Douala. Taps often dry up for months and people have to depend on water from wells built dangerously close to latrines and cesspools, fanning the prevalence of cholera and other water-borne diseases like typhoid and diarrhea.

Last September, Public Health Minister, Andre Mama Fouda declared over state radio that the epidemic had finally been brought under control thanks to massive deployment of health personnel to infected areas, the distribution of free medication as well as free medical treatment. Thereafter, the government set up an Operational Committee to Fight against Cholera. But a few months later, the disease stubbornly resurfaced in other parts of the country.

Currently, death tolls and rising cases of infection are being reported nationwide, with only the East and Adamawa regions spared. “Cholera is wrecking havoc here [in Yaounde]. I am just from the hospital with a patient who has diarrhea and has been vomiting. We did not know it was cholera. We took him to a health center the other day and they referred us to the Yaounde University Teaching Hospital where he died,” Diane Tabah, resident in the capital Yaounde, explained Wednesday. [See sound bite]

The same day at the Yaounde Centre Pasteur laboratory, officials presented statistics indicating that over 70 percent of fecal samples collected from patients at various health centers confirmed they were infected. In Douala, with 2 million inhabitants, medics say the situation is even worse. Figures from the regional public health delegation show that 22 deaths have been recorded from 87 cases in the past fortnight. Medics say the figure could be far higher if all cases were reported.

Fru Angwafor says the government is aware of the situation and is taking measures to halt the new spread of the disease. “We’re calling on all respect basic hygiene rules. About statistics, we had until 14 March 2011 recorded 124 cases in the Center Region with 88 percent of those cases reported in the capital Yaounde alone for a death toll of 9,” he said,

Last year’s cholera epidemic in Cameroon's largely rural North and Far North regions killed 420 of an estimated 7000 persons who contracted the ailment, according to public health minister André Mama Fouda. The Cameroonian government is struggling to implement an effective nationwide anti-cholera strategy. Cholera is an acute intestinal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It has a short incubation period, from less than one day to five days, and causes a copious, painless, watery diarrhea that can quickly lead to severe dehydration and death if treatment is not promptly given. Vomiting also occurs in most patients.

Meantime, civil society groups are blaming the government for not drawing up an efficient plan to combat cholera. They argue that the impromptu interventions in the wake of outbreaks cannot resolve the problem. But Fru Angwafor says the government has maintained its strategy which entails public awareness and the provision of free treatment.

He says the government is rolling out a two-phase plan to address cholera, worth five million dollars. During the first phase of the program, which started in August 2010, the government has started to supply water purification tablets and truck clean water to vulnerable areas in the North and Far North regions as well as parts of the Adamawa region. It has also handed out medical kits to local health workers and trained them in cholera emergency response.

Phase two, intended to start last December was designed to address the root causes of the recurring outbreaks. The government announced that over a period of eight months the program will renovate 200 wells and drill 50 new ones, as well as build 200 latrines in the northern regions where people generally defecate in the bush.

Government has also launched a public awareness campaign, during which Mama Fouda called on the population to "avoid drinking un-chlorinated water and eating at makeshift markets where food is not well preserved". He also encouraged Cameroonians to prepare their own oral rehydration solution to treat diarrhea by mixing salt, sugar and lime fruit in boiled water. State media have been commissioned to produce programs in all national languages that will give additional practical advice on how to avoid contracting the disease and how to treat it.

Elsewhere, international aid organizations have also come to the party and are assisting government in efforts to educate the population. But apparently, these efforts have had little effect in halting the recurrence of the killer disease.