WHO says cholera outbreak being brought under control

An outbreak of cholera in Guinea is being brought under control, the number of new cases is falling and fewer victims of the highly infectious disease are dying, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official said on Tuesday. Amadou Balde, an official at the WHO office in the Guinean capital Conakry, said only three people had died last week compared to six a week earlier, and the number of new cases had slid to 51 from 59. "We think the disease is on the decline now. Deaths dropped by 50 percent last week," Balde told IRIN by telephone. "We are getting the upper hand." Two weeks ago, Guinea's Health Minister Amara Cisse blamed torrential rains and inadequate supplies of drinking water for what he called a "cholera epidemic" which he said had killed 23 people. Last Friday, the state-owned newspaper Horoya quoted Cisse as saying the cholera death toll had leapt to 83. But Balde told IRIN that WHO figures showed that in the last four weeks, since the rains began with a vengeance, only 171 new cases of cholera and 14 deaths had been reported. Even considering cholera statistics for the year to date, WHO had only recorded 270 cases in Guinea and 32 deaths, he noted. Balde said Conakry and the provincial town of Kindia, 120 km east of the capital, had been the worst-hit, although he could not provide details of the number of cases reported there. Cholera causes violent diarrhoea and vomiting which leads to rapid dehydration of the body. It can prove fatal unless treated quickly. Cholera epidemics are normally caused by poor sanitation and polluted drinking water and are a perennial hazard during the rainy season in much of West Africa as latrines overflow and wells become polluted. Guinea has a history of annual cholera outbreaks and for the past two years, Conakry, a city of more than two million people, has suffered chronic water shortages as a result of its dilapidated infrastructure.