Friday, December 28, 2012

One Day Wonder: Cholera Crisis in Africa

Hey, it's just black people dying, right? 

"Cholera epidemic sweeps West Africa; Hundreds dead in cities’ slums due to bad water" by Adam Nossiter  |  New York Times, August 23, 2012

DAKAR, Senegal — A fierce cholera epidemic is spreading through the coastal slums of West Africa, killing hundreds and sickening many more in one of the worst regional outbreaks in years, health specialists said.

I'm wondering which globalist agency released it. 

Cholera, transmitted through contact with contaminated feces, was made worse this year by an exceptionally rainy season that flooded the sprawling shantytowns in Freetown and Conakry, the capitals of Sierra Leone and neighboring Guinea.

In both countries, some two-thirds of the population lack toilets and defecate in the open, a potentially lethal threat in the rainy season because of the contamination of the water supply. Doctors Without Borders said there had been nearly twice as many cholera cases so far this year as there were in the same period in 2007 in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Already, about 13,000 people suffering from the disease’s often fatal symptoms — diarrhea, vomiting, and severe dehydration — have been treated in those two countries, and 250 to 300 have died, Doctors Without Borders said.

In Sierra Leone, the government last week declared the cholera outbreak a national emergency, while aid workers in Guinea said the peak of the outbreak probably had not been reached. Both countries have been wracked by years of civil and political unrest, with Sierra Leone still recovering from a decade of bloody civil war that drove thousands from rural areas into the city’s slums and Guinea emerging from a half-century of often brutal dictatorship.

Rains have contributed to cholera deaths in the landlocked nations of Mali and Niger as well, health officials said.

Aid workers said the number of cases of the highly contagious disease continued to increase, particularly in Freetown, where most live in slums and children swim in polluted waters. Often, patients arriving at treatment centers arrive in poor condition — near death, in some cases.

‘‘They come barely conscious because they are severely dehydrated,’’ said Natasha Reyes Ticzon, a cholera field coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Freetown. ‘‘We’ve had some deaths because they come too late. What’s alarming is they get very ill, and very ill fast. The numbers are still rising, and the rainy season has not ended yet.’’

There have been more than 11,600 cholera cases in Sierra Leone since January, at least 216 of them fatal, according to the country’s health minister, Zainab Bangura. In Guinea, there have been 80 deaths out of 2,700 cases so far. More than 1,000 new cases a week are being recorded in Freetown, health officials said.

In the 14 countries of West and Central Africa there have been 40,799 cholera cases this year, and 846 deaths. More than half originated in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

--more--"

Also see: Sunday Globe Special: World's Worst Cholera Crisis 

Don't see much about that in my paper, either.  If I didn't know better I'd think my Zionist-controlled, agenda-pushing paper is racist.