Thursday, August 25, 2011
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The victims, mostly women and children, died within the last 24 hours in southern Mogadishu, where combination of poor sanitation conditions, scarcity of safe clean drinking water, overcrowding and high malnutrition has increased cases of cholera and waterborne diseases, a Press TV correspondent reported on Thursday. Mothers with sick children flock Benadir Hospital in Mogadishu to get some medication. This comes as doctors are already overstretched by the number of those arriving with cholera.
Doctor Ahmed Sheikh Doon Diini said that overcrowding at the camps has been the main challenge to health workers.
“The major reason for having a sudden increase in the number of cholera cases is mainly due to the high number of internally displaced people in town. This Badhaabo camp for example is overcrowded. People know little about hygienic living conditions, so they need a lot of awareness on that," he commented.
According to the World Health Organization, some 75 percent of all cases of highly infectious acute watery diarrhea are among children under the age of five.
Cholera is confirmed in Banadir, Bay, Mudug and Lower Shabelle regions of Somalia, and the number of acute watery diarrhea cases has increased dramatically in the last few months.
The last major cholera outbreak in Somalia was in 2007 with an estimated 67,000 cases.
Moreover, the drought and famine have also affected more than 11.8 million people across Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia.
Somalia has been the hardest-hit country in what is being described as the worst drought in the Horn of Africa in 60 years.
Source: PressTV