7 die as Cholera breaks out in Kenya refugee camp
Seven persons have lost their lives while more than 540 others have fallen ill in the last few weeks following a cholera outbreak in Kenya’s largest refugee camp.
And the epidemic could get worse due to heavy rains.
The Dadaab camp in Kenya houses about 350,000 refuges who have fled from civil wars in neighbouring Somalia and South Sudan.
“The rains are exacerbating an already precarious hygiene situation”, Charles Gaudry of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Kenya said in a statement.
The MSF has already set up a cholera treatment centre in the camp.
“After each heavy rain, we see an increase of patients in our treatment centre,” Gaudry added.
With most refugees living under tarpaulins, the camp offers very little in terms of sanitation which facilitates the spread of the disease.
It is hard for the refugees to maintain good hygiene because of shortages of latrines and water, MSF said.
According to the statement, regular hand-washing can effectively prevent the spread of cholera. But then, the refugees have not received soaps for the last two months.
Sadly too, the United Nations have been forced to cut food rations to the camp twice since 2013 due to funding shortages..
