Deaths in the cholera epidemic raging in tiny Guinea-Bissau have passed the 300 mark, prompting authorities to ban the sale of drinks and food by street vendors as well as forbid all traditional ceremonies. The health ministry said on Wednesday that the epidemic has claimed 305 lives and stricken 19,054 people in four months. Sources in the ministry said that despite measures to halt the spread, the four-month-old epidemic was gaining ground.

West African leaders are urging quick international assistance for Guinea-Bissau, whose new president Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira was sworn in this weekend facing a massive cholera epidemic and fears of continuing political instability. "Donors must help Bissau now, and without conditions," Senegal's Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio told reporters on Monday.

Guinea Bissau is about to run out of intravenous fluids and equipment essential to the low-cost life-saving treatment for cholera, which has claimed 112 lives in this tiny West African nation since June. An additional 6,420 patients are still at risk. Portugal and France were the first countries to send medical aid in response to the current epidemic. One litre of IV fluid costs just over a dollar, and 3.5 litres are enough to save a cholera patient from death by dehydration.

A cholera epidemic that broke out in the capital Bissau last month is spreading into the interior of the country, with more than 400 new cases reported nationwide over the past week, health officials said Friday. Since the beginning of the epidemic on 11 June, a total 1,027 cases have been registered, including 12 deaths, said Simao Mendes, director of Bissau’s General Hospital.