by Emmanuel Chidiogo

Cameroon’s Health Ministry has announced that over 1,500 people in the northern region of the country have so far been infected by a cholera outbreak, with the death of more than 200 people in the past two months.

The country’s health delegate for the northern region of the West Central African country, Rebecca Djao, said on Tuesday that only one in 20 citizens in Cameroon had access to toilets and less than one-third to safe drinking water in the country of 22 million people, according to Cameroon’s Minister of Public Works Andre Mama Fouda.

Cholera is an acute intestinal illness that causes severe stomach aches, diarrhea and vomiting. The disease is commonly contracted by drinking water or consuming foods that are contaminated with the cholera bacteria. Depending on access to treatment, the mortality rate for those infected can range from one to 60 per cent.

A similar cholera outbreak in 2010 left more than 4,000 people dead.

Meanwhile, another cholera outbreak has been reported at two refugee camps in Biu, Borno State, Nigeria. Three people have been confirmed dead, while over 100 people are said to have been infected.

The affected people were at the camp at Government Girls Secondary School IDP camp in Biu where officials of the Borno state ministry of health, National Emergency Management Agency, Red Cross Society of Nigeria and other stakeholders are trying to control the outbreak at the camp.

The outbreak in Cameroon has raised concern over the health safety of Nigerian refugees who are in the northern-part of the West African country, as a result of the reoccurring attacks by insurgents. With more than 200 deaths recorded & 1500 infection cases, the possibilities that this disease could spread back to Nigeria are high.

Sola