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DRC: UNICEF mobilises to fight cholera in Katanga

NAIROBI, 25 July (IRIN) - The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has mobilised 10 mt of emergency relief supplies worth US $64,000 to fight a cholera outbreak in Kalemie, in the north of Katanga Province, southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to a UNICEF press release issued on Wednesday.

The supplies included 4,000 litres of serum, 1,000 kg of chlorine, 40,000 packets of oral rehydration salts and 200 units of plastic sheeting, which had been delivered to Kalemie and immediately distributed. The International Rescue Committee, UNICEF's principal partner in caring for victims of this epidemic, had meanwhile benefited from the construction of an auxiliary shelter and 70 beds, UNICEF said.

The cholera treatment centre of Kalemie General Hospital has reported 360 cases of cholera among children aged five years and under since the outbreak of the epidemic at the start of July. According to UNICEF, the mortality rate of children aged five years and under due to cholera in Kalemie has risen from 1 percent to 3.6 percent.

The outbreak began when the city's water supply system failed, forcing its estimated 120,000 residents to collect water from nearby Lake Tanganyika and local rivers. Relief agencies had installed water reservoirs in several neighbourhoods of the city, and water treatment teams had been posted to locations along rivers and the lake from which residents had been drawing water, UNICEF said.

Also working with ICRC are Save the Children, Medecins Sans Frontieres, the Italian NGO ALISEI, and MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cholera is an acute, diarrhoeal illness caused by infection of the intestine with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The infection is often mild or without symptoms, but sometimes it can be severe. Approximately one in 20 infected persons contract the severe form of the disease, characterised by profuse watery diarrhoea, vomiting, and leg cramps. In these persons, rapid loss of body fluids leads to dehydration and shock. Without treatment, death can occur within hours. Although cholera can become life threatening, it is easily prevented and treated.

The CDC notes that a person may get cholera by drinking water or eating food contaminated with the cholera bacterium. In an epidemic, the source of the contamination is usually the faeces of an infected person. The disease can spread rapidly in areas with inadequate treatment of sewage and drinking water. The cholera bacterium may also live in the environment in brackish rivers and coastal waters. The disease is unlikely to spread directly from one person to another: therefore, casual contact with an infected person is not a risk for becoming ill.

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