By Ntungwe Ngalame Elias
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AlertNet) Â? The death toll from cholera in far northern Cameroon has surged above 100 after unusually heavy rains triggered severe flooding and landslides that have submerged houses and made traditional pit toilets unusable, officials say.
"We have never witnessed such an alarming death toll due to cholera or any other epidemic before," said Joseph Beti Assomo, governor of Cameroon's Far North region.
In 2009, he said, Pouss Â? a northern border town with neighbouring Chad Â? saw 35 cholera deaths after 395 people were infected with the disease, but 2010 is shaping up to be much worse.
Dr. Rebecca Djao, a public health delegate in the region, said the region's cholera death toll has now hit 106, triple last year's rate, and a total of 1,120 cases of the disease have been recorded in 13 district hospitals in the region.
Like many areas in Central and West Africa, safe drinking water is regularly in short supply in Cameroon's Far North region, particularly as droughts grow longer and more frequent, a change believed linked to climate change.
As more people, particularly the very poor, turn to untreated water from hand-dug wells, the region's vulnerability to cholera and other water-linked diseases like gastroenteritis has grown, according to a 2008 report by the United Nations Development Program.
Over 70 percent of the population of Cameroon's Far North region regularly have no access to potable water as a result of drought, according to the World Health Organization.
This year, however, heavy rains are the problem. Officials in the region believe the first cases of cholera in June may have been brought over the border from neighboring Chad, but flooding Â? which has ruined sanitary facilities and contaminated water sources Â? has contributed to the broad spread of the disease beyond the border town of Pouss and into towns like Mokolo, Kolofata and others, where the death toll is rising.
"We had unusual, persistent rains that brought severe floods causing untold human and material damage," said Elias Voumsoumna, the mayor of Pouss.
Dr. Marcelline Nimpa Mengono, chief medical officer of the Far North regional hospital, confirmed that heavy flooding had spread the growing epidemic.
"The locals here use mainly pit toilets built with mud. With heavy floods everything is submerged and one can hardly stand the nauseating smell of the still water," the doctor said.
Cholera, brought on by exposure to contaminated water, produces acute watery diarrhea that can quickly lead to severe dehydration. If untreated, it sometimes kills within hours, Mengono said.
Cameroon's government has responded to the crisis by offering financial support to the victims, and dispatching a delegation of health personnel to the region to provide help and advice.
"We have been advising the population to build modern toilets, to drink only treated water, to wash food properly before cooking and to wash their hands before eating," Mengono said. Such measures may prove hard for the poorest and most vulnerable families to adopt, however, at least while the floodwaters remain.
Cameroon Health, a local NGO that has also been trying to help cholera victims and bereaved families, reported that its workers believe the number of people infected may top 1,500 and the death toll may be near 150 if undeclared cases and those of people who died at home are taken into account.
Doctors say beds at the 13 regional hospitals in the Far North are largely full, raising concerns that new cholera patients may face difficulties being treated in the days ahead.
According to Andre Mama Fouda, the Cameroon minister of public health, the risk of the epidemic spreading further south in Cameroon, to the North and Adamawa regions, is very high with Cameroon still in the middle of its rainy season.
"We are calling on the population to adopt strict personal hygiene and follow food and water consumption guidelines.They should avoid drinking unchlorinated water and eating at makeshift street markets where food is not well preserved," the minister cautioned.
Ntungwe Elias Ngalame is an award-winning environmental writer with Cameroon's Eden Group of newspapers.
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