Health officials said Monday that supplies of clean water should help contain a cholera epidemic in Senegal's sacred city of Touba, where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims are expected next week.
As many as 30 cases of cholera are being reported daily in Touba, 200km east of the capital, Dakar, the state-owned Senegalese Press Agency reported on Monday.
The Muslim pilgrimage, called "Magal," annually attracts nearly 1 million people from across West Africa to the hometown of 19th-century religious leader Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba, exiled in 1895 by French colonizers who feared his growing influence.
The pilgrimage, which this year takes place on March 30, commemorates Bamba's exile.
"Magal is inevitable" and the government would not postpone it, Dr. Mamadou Dieng, the deputy health chief for the region, said after a meeting on Monday of national health and local district officials.
Senegal's news agency said at least 1,350 cases of cholera have been reported since January in Touba, the country's second most populous city of 1 million inhabitants. Walf Fadrji newspaper put the number of victims at 1,400.
Dr. Bernard Marcel Diop, a doctor at Dakar's state-run Fann teaching hospital, said officials had been warned of the dangers weeks ago.
"We alerted the authorities in January," he told reporters. "Now, it will take at least two weeks to come to terms with the disease."
The arrival of so many pilgrims could spread the disease throughout the country, he warned.
"If it is at all possible, they should postpone the pilgrimage," Diop said.
But Dieng said authorities instead were doing their utmost to educate people about good hygiene and to resolve a water shortage blamed for the outbreak of the highly contagious disease.
"If enough clean water is available, then there won't be any problems," he told reporters.
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