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Luanda - The death toll from a cholera outbreak in Angola has reached 1 109, officials said Friday, adding that the mortality rate is unusually high and up to 250 000 people could be sickened before the disease is contained.
More than 27 700 people have fallen ill with cholera since the outbreak was reported in mid-February in Luanda, the capital, authorities said in a report.
Uige, a city 300km northeast of Luanda, confirmed its first case on Wednesday, the report said.
Cholera has now been detected in 11 of the country's 18 provinces.
| 'At the root of all this is deep poverty' |
The fatality rate of about four percent is far above the one percent the World Health Organisation considers average.
Deputy Health Minister Jose Van Dunem told the AP the government's contingency plans are reckoning on up to 250 000 people falling ill before the disease is brought under control.
Van Dunem blamed squalid living conditions, weak public infrastructure and cultural attitudes toward cleanliness for the disease's spread.
Cholera is a major killer in developing countries. It is transmitted through contaminated water and is linked to poor hygiene, overcrowding and inadequate sanitation.
Angola's public infrastructure, including health care, crumbled during a two-decade civil war that ended in 2002.
The disease can be treated easily if patients are re-hydrated quickly.
Almost 100 delegates attended a meeting in Luanda of national health authorities to review efforts to combat cholera.
The meeting included delegates from regional health authorities, hospitals, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations.
Van Dunem said more than 70 percent of the population live in squalid conditions and have no access to a clean water supply.
About a quarter of Luanda's 4 million people live in shantytowns. Many people take water from filthy rivers and streams.
"At the root of all this is deep poverty," Van Dunem said.
Dr. Vitor Vemba, assistant chief coordinator of the Health Ministry's National Committee on Cholera, said authorities have set up emergency treatment wards at hospitals and have ordered more stocks of water-purifying tablets.
However, public education programs are the key to halting the spread of the disease, he said.
"A large part of the problem has to do with cultural attitudes," Vemba said in an interview.
He said many people defecate in the open and the current rainy season washes filth into water courses from which people take their water for drinking, cooking and washing.
The government is running a public awareness campaign. It includes information bulletins in the national media, as well as volunteers going from door-to-door.
The army, the Roman Catholic church and traditional healers are helping inform the public about measures against the disease.
The government has ordered the secondment of heavy equipment from construction and transport companies for a major operation over the weekend to remove tons of trash piled up in major cities.
Authorities have urged local people to help out and are making available about 100 000 large trash bags.
Vemba said health officials had gained valuable experience in combating the spread of disease during a yearlong epidemic of the Marburg virus that killed 227 people in the world's worst recorded outbreak of the Ebola-like fever. The rare virus was stamped out last November. - Sapa-AP
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