Wednesday, September 01, 2004
for a change today, i thought we might have some news from cameroon, lest we forget what's going on off the beaten path.
Village Crier Joins Cameroon's War on Cholera
Tue Aug 31, 8:08 AM ET
By Tansa Musa
FESSETT, Cameroon (Reuters) - With his trumpet and loud hailer the village crier in this Cameroon community has a message that may save lives.
Emerging at dusk, when the streets are filled with farmers trudging home, boys bearing firewood and little girls carrying buckets of water, the crier sounds his horn and begins.
"When you come home after the day's labor in the field, make sure you have a wash. Always wash your hands before and after your meals," he cries.
The village crier is at the forefront of the battle against cholera, a deadly intestinal infection spread by contaminated water and food that has broken out in this part of Cameroon for the first time since 1997.
Africa had been free of cholera for more than century when the disease hit western regions in 1970. It spread quickly and eventually became endemic across most of the continent.
This year there have been deadly outbreaks in Mozambique in the South, Chad, Cameroon and Democratic Republic of Congo (news - web sites) in the center and Guinea in the West, killing at least 333 people.
Since 2001, cholera outbreaks have hit a further 10 African countries including South Africa, Nigeria and Ivory Coast.
The disease, which can quickly lead to severe dehydration and death, has infected at least 6,400 people and killed more than 130 in Cameroon this year, according to government figures.
In Fessett, 150 people became ill and 18 died in the first three weeks of the outbreak in May, said Ahmadou Nsangou, chief of the community of 15,000.
"In my 18-year reign I haven't seen this before ... people dying like chickens. If the government hadn't intervened quickly I think the whole village would have been wiped out," he said.
SPEEDY REACTION
While enlisting a village crier to educate people about how to contain the disease was a local initiative, aid organizations and the authorities in the capital Yaounde launched a concerted public health campaign to bring the outbreak under control.
Measures included making treatment for all cholera patients free of charge, rushing extra doctors to hospitals in hard-hit towns and sending mobile teams to rural areas to teach people basic hygiene in house-to-house missions.
In the southwestern coastal town of Limbe, authorities decreed every Wednesday would be devoted to public cleanliness campaigns. Offices and shops closed and taxis stopped running to get as many people as possible involved.
As a result, the spread of cholera was slowed and by mid-July the government said the situation was under control and only isolated new cases were being reported.
Cholera breaks out almost every year in Cameroon, usually in the major port city of Douala, where hundreds of thousands of slum-dwellers depend for water on improvised wells that are often adjacent to latrine pits.
In the giant shanty of Bepanda, 80 percent of people do not have access to safe drinking water, and poor drainage leaves pools of stagnant water and piles of waste in densely populated areas -- a perfect breeding ground for cholera.
VULNERABLE VILLAGE
"The risk of a cholera outbreak is greatest in the hot season when water becomes even harder to come by and people use whatever water they can get, even if it is filthy," said Viviane Nzeusseu, who works for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Yaounde.
During the latest outbreak, the government helped sterilize 1,700 wells in Bepanda and dig 300 more.
Fessett is in a food-growing region about 90 miles northeast of Douala, often referred to as Cameroon's granary. Many people from Douala and other parts of the country go there to buy food.
A predominantly rural region, it does not face the same overcrowding problems as Douala, but a different set of factors made it vulnerable to cholera.
"Here people don't have the habit of digging pit latrines, they just do everything in the bushes," said Chief Nsangou.
"Many people go to relieve themselves, wash their clothes and household utensils in this stream yet people living downstream still use it as a source of drinking water," he added, pointing to the Nkoup, the main river in the region.
In addition, an industrial poultry farm disposes of waste including rotten eggs into the waters of the Nkoup.
Transporting corpses and the sick between villages and health centers also contributes to spreading the disease.
These problems are compounded by cultural factors. In some communities people see cholera as a curse and seek a cure from traditional healers or simply leave the sick to die, while others are suspicious of hospitals and refuse to go to them.
(Additional reporting by Estelle Shirbon)
