icddr,b helps fight cholera outbreaks in Somalia

A team of experts from icddr,b arrived in Kenya on September 1 to assist the international community in managing cholera outbreaks in neighbouring Somalia. Initially based in northern Kenya, the team hope to travel to Mogadishu later this week.

Present situation at Somalia

According to UNICEF, almost five million people in famine-stricken southern Somalia are at risk of cholera and acute watery diarrhoea due to malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, poor sanitation and hygiene, population movements and crowding in displaced sites. Years of civil war have torn Somalia’s health infrastructure apart, leading to extremely poor sanitary conditions in which the cholera bacteria can spread.

The icddr,b team

The icddr,b team is made up of two physicians, Dr Pradip Kumar Bardhan and Dr Azharul Islam Khan, and nursing officer, Momtaz Begum. Working with WHO and UNICEF, their goal is to review existing control and prevention guidelines, and provide training to health personnel and auxiliary staff from about 70 NGOs and government organisations. 

“Our team specialises in the management of cholera outbreaks and epidemiology,” said team leader Dr P.K Bardhan. “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 outbreaks in the region. We will also provide training on clinical case management and will assist with establishing treatment centres in areas that we feel may pose as breeding grounds for cholera.”

icddr,b’s past contribution to emergency responses

With growing expertise, icddr,b has extended assistance to help manage cholera outbreaks in the past to other countries. Since 1994, icddr,b teams have 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 the cholera epidemic that had broken out there. 

Cholera can kill quickly, but can be treated easily through antibiotics and the use of Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS). icddr,b (then known as the Cholera Laboratory) helped pioneer ORS back in early 1970s, in the wake of the Liberation War of Bangladesh.

For details of our emergency response activities please contact Faruq Hasan, Chief Press Officer, icddr,b Communications Unit.