Cholera education campaign launched in Somali capital

Dec 21 2011

Health ministry officials on Friday launched a cholera education campaign in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, "which aims to educate at least one person in every household on preventing the disease and what to do when symptoms occur," Agence France-Presse reports. "The WHO's Horn of Africa team said there had been 60,000 cases of cholera and acute watery diarrhea (AWD) in south-central Somalia since January, with 75 percent of cases among children under five," the news agency writes. Increased migration due to famine has caused a resurgence of the disease after improved water and sanitation had led to a drop in cases since the last outbreak in 2007, according to AFP (12/16).