Cholera kills one in Buea as 22 new cases confirmed

By Tata Mbunwe

A new wave of cholera outbreak has killed at least one person in Buea, Fako division of the South West region. The development comes as some 22 new cases of persons suffering from the disease were detected yesterday.

The outbreak is severe in Bolifamba, Mile 16 neighbourhood, where several people died during an earlier outbreak in January this year.

Health authorities in the region are yet to make any statement about the current situation. As at now, some of the cases are being handled at the Bolifamba Health Centre.

Previous outbreaks had been blamed on poor water and food treatment conditions although health authorities did not say what primary caused the outbreak.
Water conditions are generally poor at Bolifamba, a neighbourhood that has witnessed rapid population growth in recent times. This is principally due to the influx of internally displaced persons from other restive Anglophone areas.

On February 2 this year, the Bolifamba Water Committee chairperson, Mathias Elumpe Ebah, told journalists water resources have become scarce in the community, given an increase in population fueled by an influx of IDPs.

“The population has grown. By the time the catchment was established in 1976 and 2010 respectively, the population was not like this. So normally the water supply is short so we are begging that the authorities concerned should take cognizance of this and make sure that, whenever we put a request for water increase, they should see into it that this thing is done very well,” he said.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, in its January and March 2022 report cautioned about the cholera outbreak in Cameroon’s South West region.
Since October last year, when it started, the outbreak has touched five health districts in the region including Buea, Limbe, Mbonge, Ekondo-Titi and Bakassi.

OCHA in a report on March 10 noted that: “As of 31 January, 967 cases with 23 deaths were recorded. The case fatality rate is 2.9 per cent. In response to the crisis, the Ministry of public health, with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO), provided cholera treatment kits and deployed a team with a medical doctor, three nurses and a laboratory technician to support the case management in Bakassi health district”.

In a release on January 31, 2022, the Buea health District Medical Officer, Dr Ngund Mathias, cautioned people to “be on alert” and to adopt preventive hygiene measures, especially washing of hands before and after meals, after using the toilet and keeping all food clean.

But water scarcity remains a severe problem in Buea, safe potable water has become rare in most households, and those who can afford boreholes have embraced the option.