BURKINA FASO: Flood waters bring threat of disease
OUAGADOUGOU, 14 September 2006 (IRIN) - Severe flooding has affected nearly 20,000 people in western Burkina Faso according to government officials who fear outbreaks of cholera and malaria.
Flood waters have destroyed wells and latrines, prompting concern that the drinking water could become contaminated by water borne diseases, like cholera. Mosquitoes, which carry malaria, breed in stagnant water.
“Our main concern today is the highly exposed populations who may fall pray to cholera epidemics and malaria,” said Pascal Benon, governor of Kossi province in western Burkina Faso, who said 1,000 people had been affected in his province alone.
Villages have been cut off as roads disappeared under swelling flood waters from unseasonably heavy rains that have swept away crops and houses.
Western Burkina Faso is a mainly farming region where livelihoods are based on subsistence agriculture or earnings from cotton.
Across West Africa heavy seasonal rains that typically fall between June and October are taking their toll - in neighbouring Niger authorities say over 30,000 people have been affected.
The Burkina Faso government has delivered food, mats and buckets to affected communities, but more assistance is needed, said Benon.
Romain Guigma of the Red Cross said that his office is sending a needs assessment mission to the region. Guigma expects assistance to include teams and materials for disinfecting wells and water supplies, food distribution, and bed nets to keep off mosquitoes.
The Red Cross estimates that 22,000 households need help to recover from the floods after loosing homes and, or crops.
“It is a long time since we had such a disaster with these alarming figures,” explained Guigma, who worked to help victims of flooding in 2003 that made 5,000 people homeless in the capital Ouagadougou.
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