The cholera outbreak continues in Angola, but the World Health Organization says the number of daily cases has fallen sharply. However, the WHO now reports a cholera outbreak in southern Sudan that’s spreading northward.
Clairlice Chaignat is in charge of the World Health Organization’s Global Task Force on Cholera Control. From Geneva, she spoke to VOA’s English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua first about the cholera outbreak in Angola. “The situation in Angola is in fact starting to improve a bit in certain provinces. But of course it’s still spreading. It’s now currently affecting 14 out of 18 provinces and we still have daily incidences of about 200 new cases…We have the total number of cases that have occurred between the 13th of February and the 19th of June. It amounts now to 46,758 cases, including 1,893 deaths,” she says.
The WHO official also reports a spreading cholera outbreak in Sudan. Chaignat says, “Yes, indeed there is a cholera out in Sudan…It’s now an outbreak that started in the south. And in the southern states we had 16,187 cases, including 476 deaths. That was as of the 14th of June and it covered the period that started at the end of January. And now the outbreak has moved northwards and we have now in the north 10 out of 15 states, which are affected. And we have so far 2007 cases, including 77 deaths. The big concern there is the high fatality rate in certain states.”