An outbreak of El Tor cholera in northern, eastern and southeastern Afghanistan has killed at least 17 people – mostly women and children – in the past few weeks, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) said on 6 October [2008].
Over 1,100 people with diarrhoea and vomiting caused by the outbreak have received treatment at medical facilities in 13 of the country’s 34 provinces.
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“It’s not a classic cholera which quickly turns into an epidemic,” Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the MoPH, told IRIN. El Tor (a strain of the bacterium vibrio cholerae) is less fatal, and controllable, Fahim said.
Health workers said the use of contaminated water and poor sanitation had prompted the outbreak.
Less than 24 percent of Afghanistan’s estimated 26.6 million people have access to improved drinking water and only 12 percent have access to improved sanitation, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
A severe drought affecting large swaths of the country has made life very difficult for many communities, forcing people to use unsafe water for drinking, washing and cooking. [The Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) has been responding to the drinking water shortage by deploying water tankers and constructing rural water supply systems].
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Water chlorination in affected areas is a top priority, as is the boosting of public awareness about personal sanitation and communal hygiene.
Source: IRIN, 07 Oct 2008
Sanitation Updates 