NAIROBI, 19 March 2010 (IRIN) - As of 15 March, 15 districts nationwide were affected with cholera, with 663 cases confirmed since January, according to a Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation update. At least 15 deaths have been recorded.
Worst affected are parts of Coast, Eastern and Rift Valley provinces. Kajiado District, in Rift Valley, has 177 cases.
In 2009, at least 781 cholera cases were laboratory confirmed with 274 deaths, in an outbreak attributed to widespread water shortages because of drought, contaminated dry river beds and poor hygiene.
At present, more cholera deaths and cases are being reported in remote areas. Suspected cholera deaths have been reported in the northwestern Turkana Central District, the medical officer, Kilkrist Lokoyer, told IRIN.
"We have sent a medical team from Lodwar [the main town] to Mugur area where five people have reportedly died after vomiting and diarrhoea. We will conduct an audit to ascertain if it is indeed cholera that killed them," said Lokoyer.
Mugur is an island in the crocodile-infested Lake Turkana making it difficult to access, he said.
Major disease risk factors in Mugur include contaminated lake water and a lack of medical facilities. The nearest health centre is about 50km away.
Temporary medical camp
Some 127 cases of cholera have been recorded in the eastern district of Tharaka since 7 March, Justus Kitili, Tharaka medical officer, told IRIN.
A temporary outpatient treatment camp has been set up at the worst-hit Makutano Police Post, with medical personnel from surrounding areas mobilized to assist the sick. Other areas affected include the villages of Ura Gate, Mauthuni, Gakauni and Gatithini.
"We do not wish to raise the risk of more infection by transporting the sick to the referral district hospital; that is why we set up the temporary camp [close to] the most affected areas," he added.
"We urgently need help... we are running out of antibiotics and intravenous fluids," Kitili said, adding that contaminated water from the local River Ura is suspected of being the source of the outbreak.
Education campaigns
The government is conducting health education campaigns and has sent teams comprising epidemiologists, public health officers and nutritionists to assist in cholera investigation and control, said the senior assistant director of medical services, Philip Muthoka.
Humanitarian organizations are also on high alert due to ongoing short March to May rains, which fuel cholera risk.
The Kenya Red Cross Society is distributing water purification drugs in flood-hit areas where water systems have been damaged, with UN agencies assisting in hygiene education and drug provision.
According to Muthoka, seepage from burst sewer lines running parallel to drinking water pipes often contaminates otherwise clean water in slum areas such as Korogocho in Nairobi. Poor food handling and unhygienic human waste disposal are also to blame.
"Our problem is that during the ongoing slum upgrading process, many of the water pipes were broken and there are only a few [clean] water points now. Our drainage is clogged and waste disposal is not always standard," Joseph Gathu, a Korogocho community leader, told IRIN.
Gathu is part of a team teaching residents to boil drinking water and observe other hygiene measures.
The Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company has also distributed water tanks in the slum to enable it to truck clean water to 153,000 residents.
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