ICDDR,B to help famine-hit Somalians fight cholera
Aimed at helping the famine-hit people of Somalia fight cholera, a team of experts from International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) reached neighbouring Kenya on September 1.
Initially based in northern Kenya, the team hopes to travel to Mogadishu later this week, said a press release from ICDDR,B, an international health research institution in Dhaka, yesterday.
The team, working with World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), includes two physicians -- Dr Pradip Kumar Bardhan and Dr Azharul Islam Khan -- and a nursing officer Momtaz Begum.
Their goal is to review the existing control and prevention guidelines and provide training to health personnel and auxiliary staff from about 70 non-government and government organisations.
According to Unicef, almost five million people in famine-stricken southern Somalia are at risk of cholera and acute diarrhea. The causes are malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, poor sanitation and hygiene, population movements and crowding in displaced sites.
Years of civil war tore Somalia's health infrastructure apart, leading to extremely poor sanitary conditions in which the cholera bacteria can spread.
Team leader Dr Bardhan said their team specialises in the management of cholera outbreaks and epidemiology.
“Our priority is to train local people so that the region's health authorities are equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to manage and curtail any serious cholera outbreak in the region,” he said.
Dr Bardhan said they will also provide training on clinical case management and assist in establishing treatment centres in areas that they feel may pose as breeding grounds for cholera.
With growing expertise, ICDDR,B has been extending assistance to help manage cholera outbreaks to other countries.
Since 1994, its teams travelled widely to help fight the disease, from Rwandan refugee camps in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to Pakistan and Zimbabwe.
In November 2010, a team of clinicians, microbiologists, a medical officer and two nursing travelled to Haiti to help manage a cholera epidemic.
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