Yaounde, Cameroon (PANA) - The death toll in the cholera epidemic is still rising in Cameroon, where health authorities have reported 271 deaths from 3,605 patients, with 90 new cases reported in a single day in the far north of the country, about 2,000 kms from the capital, Yaounde.
The Chairman of the crisis group, Prof. Fru Angwafor III, explained that suspected cholera cases were coming from neighbouring countries for free treatment in Cameroonian health facilities.
Angwafor said the border areas in the Far North region reported a large number of cases, adding that medical teams would be sent to those areas to investigate.
The epidemic is also spreading to the North, a region located about 1,500 kms from Yaounde, where more than two-thirds of districts had been affected, with a death toll of 15.
According to statistics, more than 50 percent of victims died in their household s, thereby exposing relatives who handle the corpses to danger.
Faced with the scope of the epidemic, the government has earmarked two billion cfa for the crisis group to effectively control and eradicate the disease.
Measures planned include the construction of latrines, boreholes, the purchase o f health equipment and production of awareness messages in local languages.
Yaounde - 25/08/2010
