About 70 people have died in a severe outbreak of cholera in southern Somalia, close to the Kenyan border town of Mandera, reports say. At least 400 people have been affected and drought conditions are aggravating the problem.
People affected on the Kenyan side of the border are getting medical aid but almost none is available in Somalia, says the BBC’s reporter in the region.
Local non-government organisations have appealed for international help.
Read More - BBC News
February 26, 2008
TOKYO - A research team drawing on the Japanese government, universities and companies has developed rice that can act as a cholera vaccine by genetically altering it to include part of the protein of a cholera bacterium.
Members are offering their expertise in such areas as drug production, plant factory operation, and genetic modification of plants.
Mice developed antibodies to cholera after being fed the genetically altered rice. The team expects to be able to make different vaccines using the same method. It has developed an influenza vaccine and is now testing it on mice.
When the product becomes available, patients will not consume it like white rice they now eat at meals, but “use it as medicine, with set dosages,” according to Kiyono.
Read More - Genetics News
February 22, 2008
ActionAid is working with the government and other agencies to improve hygiene in the resettlement camps where many of the 100,000 people evacuated from the floods are still living in tents or simple shelters.
Paulino Timana, who is managing ActionAid’s water and sanitation work in the flood area, said: “Latrines, clean water and soap can stop the spread of cholera, but only if people understand the importance of hygiene. They also need to understand that there is a simple treatment that saves lives.”
ActionAid has bought 430 rolls of plastic sheet, each 50 metres long and two metres wide, which will be used by relief agencies to construct walls for up to 1290 latrines. The Mozambique government is providing ten tons of plastic latrine bases.
Read More - Reuters
February 20, 2008
Feb 20, 2008
MAPUTO, Feb 20 (Reuters) - An outbreak of cholera has killed 48 people in Mozambique, the health ministry said on Wednesday, compounding humanitarian problems after floods hit the southern African country.
“We registered 4,325 cholera cases nationwide since the first of January,” said health ministry spokesman Martinho Djedje. “From this figure we had 48 people dead.”
Doctors Without Borders said it had treated 450 cholera patients in the Zambezi valley, where the water-borne disease spread after the area was heavily damaged by flooding.
The humanitarian organisation said in a statement eight of them had died. “This figure is added to the 64 other deaths … from diarrhoea … reported by municipal authorities two weeks ago,” it said.
Mozambique is among a handful of southern African nations that have been pelted with torrential rains in recent weeks, causing rivers to burst their banks and forcing thousands of villagers to flee flooded homes.
At least 45 people have died in the region from the floods.
Read More - Reuters
February 20, 2008
Cholera is threatening the lives of citizens in Hajjah governorate’s Bani Qais district. Home to 50,000, the district is characterized by destitution. Ten-year-old Younis looked miserable. When asked which grade he was in, he said he didn’t go to school. Another local explained that the child had survived death after contracting cholera.
Read More - Yemen Times
February 19, 2008
IRIN News
18 February 2008 (IRIN) - An outbreak of cholera in Kenya’s northeastern district of Mandera has claimed the lives of six people, with the local hospital reporting that about 130 people had sought treatment at the facility during the past week.
About 60 patients have been admitted to the hospital, a medical officer from the Mandera District Hospital, who asked not to be named, said, adding that the hospital had asked for more cholera treatment drugs from Garissa, the provincial capital of the Northeastern Province where Mandera is situated.
Abukar Abdi, public health officer for Mandera, said the outbreak could be the result of general poor hygiene in Mandera town or the use of contaminated water from the nearby Dawa River, which forms part of the border between Kenya and Ethiopia.
He said his office had ordered 25 food kiosks in Mandera town to close down due to poor hygiene.
Cholera is a diarrhoeal illness caused by Vibrio cholerae. Between 10 and 20 percent of patients develop severe watery diarrhoea with vomiting. Treatment is mainly by rehydration and up to 80 percent of cholera cases can be treated successfully using only oral rehydration salts.
February 19, 2008
Feb 14, 2008 - Voice of America
Aid workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are expressing concern that a cholera epidemic in the southeastern mining region is getting worse, despite attention to the problem. About 100 people have died since the outbreak began in September in a region experiencing a population boom. VOA’s Nico Colombant reports from our West and Central Africa bureau in Dakar.
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February 14, 2008
Feb 12, 2008
Over 60 children between the ages of 1-2 have reportedly died of cholera epidemic in Northern Cross River State.
The incident which occurred three weeks ago has been attributed to drinking of contaminated water. The death occurred in Ogoja and its environs.
The epidemic which is ravaging children in Yala, Obudu, Mbube, Bekwara, and Ogoja main towns is attributable to shortage of water supply to the people resulting to the use of water from ponds, streams and gutters for domestic use and drinking.
Read More - allAfrica
February 12, 2008
BMJ. 2008 Feb 2;336(7638):266-8.
Zinc supplementation in children with cholera in Bangladesh: randomised controlled trial.
Roy SK, Hossain MJ, Khatun W, Chakraborty B, Chowdhury S, Begum A, Mah-e-MuneerS, Shafique S, Khanam M, Chowdhury R.
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR, B), 68, Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Sarani, Mohakhali, Dhaka -1212, Bangladesh.
skroy@icddrb.org
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the impact of zinc supplementation in children with cholera. DESIGN: Double blind, randomised, placebo controlled trial. SETTING: Dhaka Hospital, Bangladesh. PARTICIPANTS: 179 children aged 3-14 years with watery diarrhoea and stool dark field examination positive for Vibrio cholerae and confirmed by stool culture. INTERVENTION: Children were randomised to receive 30 mg elemental zinc per day (n=90) or placebo (n=89) until recovery. All children received erythromycin suspension orally in a dose of 12.5 mg/kg every six hours for three days. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Duration of diarrhoea and stool output. Results 82 children in each group completed the study. More patients in the zinc group than in the control group recovered by two days (49% v 32%, P=0.032) and by three days (81% v 68%, P=0.03). Zinc supplemented patients had 12% shorter duration of diarrhoea than control patients (64.1 v 72.8 h, P=0.02 
and 11% less stool output (1.6 v 1.8 kg/day, P=0.039). CONCLUSION: Zinc supplementation significantly reduced the duration of diarrhoea and stool output in children with cholera. Children with cholera should be supplemented with zinc to reduce its duration and severity. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinical trials NCT00226616.
February 7, 2008
Feb 7, 2008
The Director General of Health Services, Dr Sam Zaramba, has blamed the persistent outbreaks of cholera in Kampala on City Council’s failure to enforce by-laws on sanitation.Dr Zaramba told Daily Monitor yesterday that the sanitation situation in most of the areas where cholera cases have been reported is appalling mainly due to low latrine coverage.
Read More - The Monitor
February 7, 2008
