SENEGAL: Cholera cases fall despite big pilgrimage

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

DAKAR, 25 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - Senegal’s cholera epidemic is on the wane despite a gathering of thousands of pilgrims in the country last week, health authorities said Monday.

A World Health Organisation official said that contrary to fears of a possible increase in the number of cholera cases after the religious gathering, authorities had registered only 752 new cholera cases last week, against 1,187 new cases between 11 and 17 April.

“Between 18 and 24 April, we are pleased to note that the situation is stationary, even on the decline,” Malang Coly, who heads WHO’s Disease Prevention Control unit in Dakar, told IRIN. “We had feared an upsurge after the celebration of the prophet’s birth.”

Senegal’s health authorities had taken preventive measures ahead of the April gathering in Tivaouane, 100 km northeast of Dakar in the Thies region, which each year marks the birth of the prophet Mohamed.

They were concerned that the concentration of people from different parts of the country both could fuel and spread the epidemic, which originally began in January.

But Idrissa Tall, chief doctor in the Thies region, told IRIN that no new cholera cases had been registered in that area in the three days since the pilgrimage, and “no case at all for more than 20 days in Tivaouane and the nearby area.”

In comparison, the health ministry recorded 3,400 new cholera cases in the week between 28 March and 3 April, when more than a million Muslims congregated in Touba, 200 km east of Dakar, on 29 March for the most heavily-attended annual pilgrimage in this 95 percent Muslim country.

In the following days, cholera cases exploded first in the Diourbel region, where Touba lies, and then spread across all of Senegal’s 11 regions as travellers brought the water-borne disease home. A few cases were even signalled in neighbouring Gambia.

Coly of WHO attributed last week’s fall of new cholera cases to effective action by the health authorities during the celebrations.

“No aspect of the fight was neglected during the “Maouloud“ (celebration of Mohamed’s birth), “ he said. “There were volunteers and members of the military to support the health system, effective sensitisation was carried out and Tivaouane’s water system is more efficient than Touba’s. “

“All of this contributed to there being no cholera cases in Tivaouane, “ he said.

After being hit by the country’s worst cholera epidemic in more than a decade, there was new optimism also in the capital Dakar, where cholera cases are decreasing by the day.

“Cholera cases are on the decline in Dakar. Yesterday, we registered only seven cases, and no deaths”, Sidi Fall, Dakar district’s chief doctor, told IRIN on Monday.

But it is still too early to cry victory, he said. “We do not know yet whether the epidemic is being brought under control”, Fall said. “The emphasis must be put on hygiene”.

Cholera is an acute intestinal infection usually caused by poor sanitation and dirty drinking water. It causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting that leads to dehydration of the body and can prove fatal unless treated quickly.

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