Friday, September 10, 2010

Cholera Outbreak in Parts of Africa

Emily Ferland

09/10/10

10:45 a.m.

Cholera Outbreak

Due to lack of clean drinking water and lack of access to lavatories, recent floods have made areas of Cameroon and Nigeria extremely unsanitary. This contributed to the spread of Cholera disease. Nearly 600 people have died recently from the outbreak. It is said that only certain areas of the country have been affected it does not mean that the whole country should not be worried, everyone is at risk. Out of the 600 deaths, 352 were in Nigeria (6, 400 sickened by Cholera in Nigeria). Many people die from this disease because they loose great amounts of potassium and sodium through their stool or vomiting. Without potassium or sodium it becomes life-threatening.

I believe that this outbreak is important for everyone. Although we are far away from Nigeria and Cameroon, it may affect us in one way or another. People have easy access to leave from one country to another. This creates problems because not only are people going from country to country but had they not known they were carrying the disease until its too late, it causes serious problems. Many times the reason that disease become so out of control is because we don't know if we are a carrier of the disease until we become ill with it.

The article also states that the outbreak began because of poor sanitation, drinking water and floods that carried out the unsanitary factors into areas of the country. This could possibly have been prevented or downsized had the people of these places been given proper sanitary environments. Also a way to prevent future occurrences, educate the people as to how to go about finding or attaining clean drinking water.



http://www.justicenewsflash.com/2010/09/08/cholera-outbreak-kills-more-than-600-in-nigeria-cameroon_201009085458.html

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