The WHO yesterday began distributing 900,000 doses of cholera vaccine in Bangladesh’s camps for Rohingya refugees fleeing from Myanmar, as authorities rush to prevent a major outbreak of the deadly disease.
More than 10,000 cases of diarrhea have been reported in the past week alone, the WHO said.
Doctors in two clinics said that there have been several cases of patients with the symptoms of cholera, a virulent diarrhea that kills within 36 hours if not treated.
Cholera has not been identified in testing of patient samples by the Bangladeshi Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, although clinics say they are waiting for results for some samples sent last week.
“There is a clear risk for cholera,” WHO representative N. Paranietharan said. “Sporadic cases are inevitable, [but] we are not expecting a major outbreak like Yemen.”
War-torn Yemen is in the grip of a cholera crisis, with more than 750,000 sufferers afflicted by the bacteria, which is spread when contaminated feces is ingested by humans, usually through the water supply.
The cholera vaccination campaign in Bangladesh, the second-largest in history, will be crucial to containing any outbreak, Paranietharan said.
More than 1,000 people will fan out across the sprawling camps on the southern tip of Bangladesh that are home to more than 519,000 Rohingya Muslims.
In pounding heat and stifling humidity, traumatized and malnourished refugees are crammed into bamboo and canvas huts packed across muddy hillsides. Feces lies in lanes that flood in the pouring rain.
More than 3,000 latrines have been installed, but many overflow and sit above pools and creeks where refugees bathe.
Many new wells for drinking water are shallow and have become contaminated by sewage, Paranietharan said.
“While we are doing this vaccination, it is not an alternative to fixing the water, sanitation and hygiene intervention, it just buys us time,” he said. “Sanitary facilities and hygiene promotion have still not met the standards. They need to be improved quickly.”
“I believe we are facing a tsunami. We just don’t know if it’s going to be 10 feet or 50 feet [3m or 15.2m],” said Bruce Murray, a physician at a dysentery clinic in the Kutupalong camp.
“Cholera is known to be endemic in Bangladesh and now we are bringing in half a million people in squalid conditions and it’s got to be inevitable. It’s a matter of when it hits, rather than if,” he said.
Murray said that there could be “tens of thousands” of victims in an outbreak.
Mobile teams are also ready to go to inaccessible parts of the camps with oral rehydration salts that can save cholera patients if they cannot get access to intravenous fluids.
Aid workers worry that they lack the staff to get the vaccines out quickly, while the WHO says it urgently needs US$10.2 million to do the job properly.
The first round of the vaccination campaign will cover 650,000 people aged one year and older. A second round will target 250,000 children aged between one and five with an additional dose for extra protection.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number