Efforts to fight cholera in DRC need to include sanitation, waste facility improvements, behavior change, UNICEF official says

May 2 2012

A cholera epidemic that began in January 2011 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is continuing because of "poor hygiene, lack of awareness of the population about transmission mechanisms, very limited access to protected and monitored water sources and lack of sanitation infrastructure," according to Nona Zicherman, chief of emergency operations in DRC for UNICEF, IRIN reports. Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 30,000 cholera cases have been identified and more than 700 people have died of the disease since June 2011, the news service states. Zicherman "noted that emergency and medium- and long-term interventions to limit the spread of cholera needed to be developed," including disinfecting contaminated areas, monitoring water sources, changing behaviors related to hygiene, and constructing water supply and sanitation facilities, according to IRIN (4/30).