Refugees in cholera tsunami
WHO drive to vaccinate Rohingyas in Bangladesh
THE World Health Organisation (WHO) began distributing 900 000 doses of cholera vaccine yesterday in Bangladesh’s camps for Rohingya refugees fleeing from Myanmar, as authorities rush to prevent a major outbreak of the deadly disease.
More than 10 000 cases of diarrhoea have been reported in the past week alone, the WHO said.
Doctors in two clinics said there had been several cases of patients with the symptoms of cholera, a virulent diarrhoea that kills within 36 hours if not treated.
Cholera has not been identified in testing of patient samples by the Bangladesh Health Ministry, although clinics say they are waiting for the results of some samples sent last week.
“There is a clear risk of cholera,” said Dr N Paranietharan, the WHO’s representative in Bangladesh.
“Sporadic cases are inevitable, but we are not expecting a major outbreak like in Yemen,” he said. War-torn Yemen is in the grip of a cholera crisis, with more than 750 000 sufferers afflicted by the bacteria, which is spread when contaminated faeces get into the water supply.
The cholera vaccination campaign in Bangladesh, the second largest in history, will be crucial to containing any outbreak, said Paranietharan.
More than 1 000 people will fan out across the sprawling camps in the southern tip of Bangladesh that are home to more than 519 000 Rohingya Muslims.
The Rohingya fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar when government forces launched a ferocious offensive, denounced by the UN as ethnic cleansing, in response to a series of Rohingya militant attacks on security posts on August 25.
In searing heat and stifling humidity, traumatised and malnourished refugees are crammed into bamboo and canvas huts packed across muddy hillsides. Faeces lie in lanes that get flooded.
More than 3 000 toilets have been installed, but many overflow and sit above pools and creeks where refugees bathe.
Many new wells for drinking water are shallow and have become contaminated by sewage, Paranietharan said.
“While we are busy vaccinating, it is not an alternative to fixing the water, sanitation and hygiene intervention, it just buys us time. Sanitary facilities and hygiene promotion have still not met the standards. They need to be improved quickly.”
In a dysentery clinic in the Kutupalong camp run by the Medical Teams International group, patients with severe diarrhoea lie motionless, moaning as intravenous fluid flows into them.
“I believe we are facing a tsunami. We just don’t know if it’s going to be 3m or 15m,” said Bruce Murray, a physician at the clinic.
“Cholera is known to be endemic to Bangladesh and now we are bringing in half a million people in squalid conditions and it’s inevitable. It’s a matter of when it hits, rather than if,” he said.