DAKAR (AlertNet) - Cameroon has asked for additional funds from international agencies to contain the worst cholera outbreak in six years that has killed 170 people and infected more than 2,000 others in the north of the central African country, a U.N. official said on Thursday.
Ora Musu Clemens-Hope, the head of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Cameroon, said the government estimates it needs about $650,000 to hire epidemiologists, water and sanitation experts, and health care workers on the ground to tackle cholera in parts of the country hardest hit by the outbreak.
"I think the need is clearly demonstratedÂ?the health workers are doing the best they can but they are overwhelmed," Clemens-Hope told AlertNet by telephone on the road to the town of Kousseri near Cameroon's border with Chad.
"Schools are being used as treatment centres because access to health care is not available but the schools re-open in three weeks whereas the rainy season which favours the spread of cholera will continue for another 3 months," she added.
Cameroon's ministers of health and water and energy are also on a three-day visit to the region where 70 percent of the inhabitants have no access to clean drinking water and only 5 percent have latrines.
Health officials in the country say this situation is responsible for regular outbreaks of cholera, a disease generally spread through food and water contaminated with bacteria.
"We're looking at how the government can accelerate the kind of capital investment that is needed in this part of the country to provide water on a long term basis," Clemens-Hope said.
The government says it is considering a plan to construct five new dams in the region to improve access to clean water for the population.
The Far North and North regions of Cameroon comprise an estimated population of over 5 million people, and share borders with Nigeria, Chad and the Central African Republic.
UNICEF is concerned that any further spread of the outbreak could have serious consequences for women and children across the sub-region.
"Our concern is that mobility in this region is very high and cholera is highly, highly contagious," the head of UNICEF in Cameroon said.
About seven other countries in West and Central Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Benin and Liberia have reported outbreaks of cholera since the start of the rainy season according to the regional office of UNICEF in Dakar.
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