Senegal swamped by cholera
2005-04-02 21:24
Dakar - Senegal has seen as a sharp rise in cholera with 18 deaths and some 1 800 new cases recorded in the last week following the annual Muslim pilgrimage to the holy Senegalese city of Touba, public health officials said on Saturday.
"Most of the cases recorded were among those who were in Touba at the beginning of the week," said Pape Coumba Faye, director of preventive medicine at the health ministry.
Faye said the government was rushing drugs to affected areas to stop the epidemic from spreading.
Observed as a national holiday in the Muslim-majority west African state, the annual pilgrimage is a commemoration of the departure into exile in 1895 of Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba, spiritual founder of the Mouride brotherhood.
Over the week leading to the celebration on Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of Muslims from around Africa and as far away as Europe arrived in Touba to more than double the million-strong population of Senegal's second city.
Cholera is a waterborne disease which causes serious diarrhoea and vomiting and can be fatal if not treated.