Cholera is threat to Lake Chad

Millions in danger says UN

MILLIONS of children across the Lake Chad basin are prey to deadly water-borne diseases such as cholera and hepatitis E as the rainy season hits a region already reeling from Boko Haram’s insurgency, the United Nations said yesterday.

More than 5.6 million children in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria, many of whom have been uprooted by violence and live in host communities or refugee camps, are facing the disease threat as the rains arrive, the UN children’s agency (Unicef) said.

Flooding and muddy roads are expected to limit aid access to remote areas, where hunger is growing and food is lacking, while the insecurity has made it hard to deliver supplies and ensure clean water is available ahead of the rains, aid agencies say.

“Unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene conditions can lead to cholera and hepatitis E,” Unicef’s regional director Marie Pierre Poirier said.

In Niger’s Diffa region – which has been hit by the conflict and hosts about 250 000 uprooted Nigeriens and Nigerian refugees – an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed at least 33 pregnant women so far this year, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said.

Boko Haram’s campaign to create an Islamic state is in its eighth year with little sign of ending.

It has claimed more than 20 000 lives and uprooted 2.7 million people across the Lake Chad region. — http://news.trust.org/ Reuters