March 8, 2002

Congo Says Cholera Outbreak Under Control

By Finbarr O'Reilly

KINSHASA (Reuters) - A deadly cholera outbreak which has killed hundreds of people in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is finally being brought under control, health officials said on Friday.

The central African country, embroiled in a 3-year war, said this week there had been 5,021 cases and 407 deaths from the illness in southeastern Katanga province since November.

"The death rate for the epidemic has dropped from 11% to 6% over the past week," Mobile Kampanga, an adviser with Congo's Health Ministry, told Reuters.

Congo's health minister, Mamba Mashako, returned late on Thursday from Katanga province, part of which is controlled by rebel forces caught up in Congo's war, which started in 1998 when rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda invaded.

Cholera is spread through contaminated food and water. It is an acute intestinal infection that causes copious, watery diarrhoea, which can quickly lead to severe dehydration and death if not treated promptly.

In most cases it can be treated by rehydrating patients, and the fatality rate is less than 1% if there are proper treatment programmes. However, if there are no facilities the fatality rate can quickly rise to as high as 50%.

More than 2 million people have died over the past 3 years in Congo, mostly from starvation and diseases such as malaria, AIDS and cholera. Another 2 million people have been displaced by fighting, mostly in the east.

"Even when people flee fighting, they still must drink water and often it's not clean," said Kampanga.

An emergency team from the United Nations Children's Fund, World Health Organisation, the UN humanitarian coordinator and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) went to the region last week to bring the epidemic under control, Kampanga said.

The conflict in Congo began when rebel groups backed by Rwanda and Uganda invaded the former Zaire to topple the central government, in turn backed by Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia.

No side has been able to win a clear military victory, but Congo has been carved into three main spheres of control, with the government controlling the western and southern provinces.

Source: Reuters News Service, March 8, 2002.