GUINEA-BISSAU: Low-Cost Treatment in Cholera Epidemic Could Save Many Lives

By Mario de Queiroz Reprint | | Print |

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Aug 18 2005 (IPS) - Guinea Bissau is about to run out of intravenous fluids and equipment essential to the low-cost life-saving treatment for cholera, which has claimed 112 lives in this tiny West African nation since June. An additional 6,420 patients are still at risk.

Portugal and France were the first countries to send medical aid in response to the current epidemic. One litre of IV fluid costs just over a dollar, and 3.5 litres are enough to save a cholera patient from death by dehydration.

Since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974, this small nation of 36,125 sq km and 1.2 million people wedged between Senegal and Guinea on the Atlantic coast of West Africa has failed to make it off the list of the world’s 24 poorest countries.

Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) stands at a mere 216 dollars a year, and the main economic activity is agriculture.

The precarious economic situation, aggravated by a string of armed conflicts over the past eight years, has made Guinea Bissau heavily dependent on foreign aid, when it comes to fighting outbreaks of disease as well.

In 1999, a year-long civil war devastated much of the country’s infrastructure.

This week, the government declared the outbreak an epidemic, after it spread to seven of the country’s nine regions. However, 80 percent of the cases have been reported in the capital.

Public Health Minister Maria Odete Semedo told Portuguese reporters in Bissau Wednesday that the situation was “quite severe.”

Guinea Bissau health officials quoted by the Portuguese news agency Lusa said that in a village in the southern region of Quinara, survivors fled to a nearby village after five members of a family died on the same day.

The health minister, who warned that the situation is “going from bad to worse,” called on the international community to help the country fight the epidemic.

Portugal responded to the request by sending 6.5 tons of medical equipment and medicines. France followed suit with a shipment of 1.5 tons of medical supplies, set to arrive in Bissau on Thursday.

Doctors of the World-Portugal has also sent health professionals, who are working with the authorities in Guinea Bissau.

The Portugal-Guinea Bissau Friendship Association launched a media campaign Wednesday for collecting funds, IV fluids and antibiotics to send to the affected areas.

Cholera is an acute diarrheal illness caused by infection by the Vibrio cholerae bacterium, usually through consuming contaminated water or food. In an epidemic, the source of contamination tends to be the faeces of an infected person. The disease can spread rapidly in areas with inadequate treatment of sewage and drinking water.

Although symptoms are often mild, approximately one out of 20 patients has a severe attack, characterised by profuse watery diarrhea, vomiting and leg cramps. In these cases, rapid loss of body fluids leads to dehydration and shock. Without treatment, involving the administration of IV fluids, death often occurs within hours.

The cholera bacterium may also live in brackish rivers and coastal waters. The disease is unlikely to spread directly from one person to another.