Fri Aug 19, 2011 9:45AM GMT
A paramedic attends to internally displaced children suffering from cholera inside a ward at Banadir hospital in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, August 18, 2011.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN children's agency (UNICEF) have warned that cholera and acute diarrhea cases are on the rise in famine-stricken Somalia.
WHO Representative for Somalia Marthe Everard said on Thursday that lack of safe water, bad sanitation, overcrowding in camps and the shortage of food will escalate the spread of infectious diseases such as cholera and pneumonia and increase the death toll, Xinhua reported.
The UN health agency has confirmed cholera in the Banadir, Bay, Mudug and Lower Shabelle regions in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
WHO has added that more than 4,272 cases of acute watery diarrhea and cholera have been reported in Mogadishu's Banadir Hospital alone since January this year.
"Our major concern is to monitor and detect new disease outbreaks in the many informal settlements set up by internally displaced people in and around Mogadishu," Everard said.
The health agency has said they are preparing for a potential 100,000 cholera cases, 80 percent of which will be moderate cases.
The agency added that the influx of some 100,000 people into Mogadishu this year alone has damaged their earlier preparedness.
UNICEF has also said the combination of malnutrition, lack of clean water and poor sanitation along with the rush of thousands of people into Mogadishu in search of food have had terrible consequences.
"There is no need for a child to die of diarrhea, yet this is tragic reality for a Somali child, who is acutely malnourished. It is a lethal combination." said Rozanne Chorlton, UNICEF Representative for Somalia.
MA/JG/MB
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