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Saturday, February 4, 2012

Alarming outbreak of cholera in the Central African Republic begins to subside

Latest news release from UNICEF, excerpt :

" BANGUI and NDIMBA, Central African Republic, 3 February 2012 – Véronique Yassambatendji was awakened late one night in October when her husband began experiencing severe diarrhoea and vomiting. The 30-year-old mother of four brought him directly to the local health centre in Ndimba, where he was treated with oral rehydration salts.

Unfortunately, the treatment was not enough.

“He died at 4:00 the next afternoon,” Ms. Yassambatendji recalled. “My children and I stayed in the hospital to clean ourselves, and then we took off our clothes and threw them in the river. Afterwards, health workers sprayed everything in the house with disinfectant.”

Ms. Yassambatendji’s husband was one of 19 people killed in the country’s cholera outbreak last year. More than 300 people cases were reported, and an epidemic was declared on 30 September 2011.

It was an alarming development. Though neighbouring countries, including Cameroon, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have experienced outbreaks over the past decade, the Central African Republic had not seen a cholera case in as many as a dozen years."

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