Massive drive by the WHO to vaccinate refugees 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 that there have 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 Bangladesh’s 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 as 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 contaminate faeces gets 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 on 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 lies 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 pointed out.
“While we are busy vaccinating, it is not an alternative to fixing the water, sanitation and hygiene intervention, it just buys us time,” he added.
“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.
Murray said there could be “tens of thousands” of victims in an outbreak. Paranietharan said his organisation had the capacity to handle 70 000 cholera cases.
As well as a handful of clinics, mobile teams are ready to go to inaccessible parts of the camps with oral rehydration salts that can save cholera patients if they can’t get access to intravenous fluids.
Aid workers worry they lack the staff to get the vaccines out quickly, while the WHO says it urgently needs $10.2 million (R139.1m) to do the job properly.
The first round of the vaccination campaign will cover 650 000 people aged one year and older.
A second round is expected to target 250 000 children aged between one and five, with an additional dose for extra protection. – Reuters MORE than 40 speakers from a range of African countries debated the Activity Report of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) at its Fifth Ordinary Session at the Gallagher Conference Centre in Midrand yesterday.
The report was presented by PAP president Roger Nkodo Dang, who said African integration was essential, before inviting speakers to discuss their priorities and concerns.
Gambia congratulated PAP for working towards the removal of sanctions on Sudan, and called for more commitment to action while urging an investigation into high youth unemployment and migration from the continent.
Burundi pleaded for international co-operation between PAP and international partners, before pleading for PAP’s support against sanctions being imposed on the country by Europe following allegations of mass human rights abuses.
Burkina Fasso thanked PAP members for support after Islamist militants carried out attacks in the capital Ouagadougou earlier in the year that killed at least 18 people, including foreigners.
It recommended that PAP invest more effort in fighting terrorism and extremism in the Sahel region, saying these attacks affected development.
The expansion of local and regional parliaments to allow greater autonomy, and more involvement in the consultative process of PAP was Cape Verde’s recommendation.
The country also stated that negotiations between the AU and the EU, post the 2000 Cotonou Agreement, a treaty between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states, should be based on safeguarding African interests.
Egypt thanked the PAP for standing by it when it was fighting terrorism. – ANA