Ethiopia: Cholera out-break kills many!

Heavy rains causing floods in Ethiopia has rescinded cholera out-break that has killed at least 182 people in the last few months.

BBC has reported that, “some 20,000 people have been infected since the outbreak erupted in June.”

The situation has worried the United Nations. Recently some cases were reported in Arusha, Tanzania. The UN is afraid the situation could get worse and spread to many other countries in Africa.

“The United Nations is warning that the disease could even spread across the border to Kenya. Ethiopia’s health authorities are calling it acute watery diarrhoea and are still trying to establish whether the epidemic is in fact cholera. The outbreak has swept through Ethiopia over the last few months and has now spread to the capital, Addis Ababa, where two treatment centres have been set up.”

Accordning to BBC’s report, cholera is normally caused and spread quickly when “lack of access to clean drinking water is a major factor in the spread of diarrhoea as people turn to water sources that are often highly contaminated by sewage.”

By Korir, African Press in Norway (APN)

africanpress@chello.no

Source: BBC/19/11