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Cholera outbreak leaves one dead, 202 hospitalised
2006-11-11 08:52:28
By By Ali Sultan
Waterborne disease has killed one person and 202 more were taken to hospital in Zanzibar’s main town and Tanzania’s capital, largely due to a shortage of drinking water and poor sanitation services, officials said on Friday.
In the capital, Dar es Salaam, one person has died from cholera and 56 others have contracted the disease, said Gastor Mwakembe, spokesperson for the city council.
He said all the cases come from the most densely populated section of the city and that a health education program was under way. Cholera is spread by contaminated water and food.
”We appeal to residents to observe health regulations, including boiling drinking water,” Mwakembe said.
In Zanzibar, an archipelago off Tanzania’s coast, 146 patients have been admitted to hospital for dysentery since October 20, Health and Social Welfare Minister Sultan Mugheiry said. He added that most of the victims were children.
The risk of waterborne disease rises twice a year, when seasonal rains come to Tanzania. Both Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam suffer from a shortage of clean water and an outdated sewage system, which helps spread disease.
The annual report of the UN Development Program released Thursday said that lack of access to clean water and basic sanitation kills nearly 2 million young children each year.
This amounted to nearly 5 000 deaths per day, most of them preventable, and made diarrhoea the second biggest childhood killer.
The report cited Peruvian studies that the installation of a flush toilet in the home increased by almost 60 percent the chances of a child surviving to the first birthday and in Egypt by 57 percent.
A recent door-to-door study conducted by Zanzibar’s Health Ministry found that 90 percent of households in residential areas had no toilets.
”People must boil drinking water and wash their hands,” Mugheiry said. ”The ministry will make sure that sanitation would be improved.”
Zanzibar also produces only 24 million litres of water a day despite demand for 50 million litres, forcing people to collect rain water or drink from streams, both of which are unsafe.
Both dysentery and cholera can be easily treated, but can also result in death if left untreated.
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