By Jason McLure
ADDIS ABABA (Bloomberg) — At least 34 people died in Ethiopia following a suspected cholera outbreak, with more than 4,000 sickened in the capital, Addis Ababa, in the past two weeks.
The disease has infected as many as 1,000 people a day in the past week, Dadi Jima, deputy director of the state-owned Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute, said in an interview today. He declined to say the disease is cholera.
The government has not “fully confirmed” the type of illness, Dadi said. “We usually report it as acute watery diarrhea.” The spread of the disease has been exacerbated by heavy rains in the Horn of Africa country, he said.
Cholera, mainly spread through contaminated water and food and poor sanitation, causes acute diarrhea and vomiting that can lead to death. The illness is considered to be endemic in “many countries” and the pathogen that causes the disease can’t currently be eliminated from the environment, according to the Web site of the World Health Organization.
The United Nations humanitarian agency said six cholera- treatment centers capable of treating 180 people a day have been dispatched to the country. The UN has also sent drugs for the treatment of more than 1,500 severe cases and 600 mild cases of acute water diarrhea, as well as water-purification tablets, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an e-mailed statement.
Of the 34 who have died in Ethiopia, seven fatalities were in Addis Ababa, Dadi said. He didn’t provide figures for the number of people affected nationwide, adding only that the disease had been reported in 31 districts.
If untreated, cholera can kill a healthy adult in as little as five hours, according to the WHO.
(Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at [email protected].)
6 thoughts on “Cholera outbreak kills 34 people in Ethiopia”
So it is Cholera.
It was Cholera before, and it is cholera now.
The government of Ethiopia, if it cres for its people, should come out openly and admit that there is a cholera outbreak in Addis, ask for help from the world wide community, help all those infected, and warn tourists and other visitors to postpone their trip until this problem is taken care of.
Woyane does not care as long as it is not in TIGRAI. It may be intentionally done to “eliminate his enemies” a kind of biological warfare.
Woyane as usual hides such deadly plague amongst Ethiopians. How long are we to carry these Woyane thugs on our shoulders? Hide from the public everything bad, and lie about economic achievement by painting non-existent rosy pictures – Woyane’s strategy of governance.
Here we go! Another Zimbabwe in the making
Do you see our development? when I was there, this cholera was the problem of Rift Vallies area since woyane has controlled Ethiopia. I heard about the disease existence in Addis Ababa for the first time. This is the result of revenge of woyane that hurting people by hungry. This tells us how much the Addis Ababa people are punished after the election of 2005. Woyane is exprienced to punish people as a revenge. In Kembata Tembaro zone, Mudulla Woreda was punished like today’s Addis Ababa in the election of 2001. That time, Dr. Beyene Petros won, but after revenge in 2005, Woyane won by 100% in Mudulla Woreda. Now, after the revenge, you will see in the 2010 election. This is not new, the matter is the style of punishment.
Here we go. Such is becoming the trade mark of mamma Ethioia under the rule of the junta. If it is not HIV it is cholera, if it is not chlera it is meningitis, if it is not meningitis it is famine, if it is not famine it is geocide if it is not genocide it is … Time to get rid of this genocidal junta