Tsunami survivors in peril

2004-12-29 20:50

Paris - Cholera, malaria and typhoid are the worst diseases stalking the survivors of Asias tsunami calamity and the weapons against them are clean water and sanitation, relief agencies say.

"Standing water can be just as deadly as moving water," Carol Bellamy, executive director of Unicef, warned on Wednesday.

"The floods have contaminated the water systems, leaving people with little choice but to use unclean surface water. Under these conditions people will be hard put to protect themselves from cholera, diarrhoea and other deadly diseases."

"Potable water is essential to avoid the propagation of waterborne disease, in particular malaria," the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

In many places around the disaster-ravaged coastline of the Indian Ocean, the water and sewage systems will have been wrecked by the quake-driven waves, and groundwater supplies may be contaminated by seawater.

In such conditions, it will be essential to have non-contaminated water supplies - brought in by truck or isolated in a concrete-walled reservoir - and for latrines to be dug to take care of human waste.

These are the main threats, experts say:

Cholera, an intestinal infection caused by a bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It causes severe dehydration through diarrhoea and is dangerous to babies and the elderly, but in most cases can be successfully fought by intravenous fluids and antibiotics.

The bug lives naturally in brackish water and estuaries and is passed on from human to human by faeces.

"(...) What happens in any tsunami... is the sewer and water systems get combined," Andrew Natsios, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAid) said on Tuesday.

"As a result of that, the only water people drink is basically mixed with sewage, and that means a high risk of cholera and other communicable disease that can begin epidemics."

Typhoid, a fever caused by the germ Salmonella typhi, blamed for some 600 000 deaths per year. The bug is carried in the blood and intestinal tract and is passed on through tainted water or through eating food prepared by someone who carries the germs on his hands and fails to wash them off after going to the toilet. Like cholera, typhoid proliferates in conditions of poor sanitation. It can be treated with antibiotics, although drug-resistant strains of the bug are a growing concern, and vaccines are available.

Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease in tropical countries that claims around a million lives a year. The disease cycle depends on mosquitoes living and breeding in proximity to humans. The insect lays its eggs in water and feeds on humans for a blood meal, transferring a parasite that proliferates in the liver and attacks red-blood cells, causing fever and anaemia. Another mosquito-transmitted danger is dengue fever.

An early task for relief workers will be to drain stagnant pools left by the tsunamis, which will be ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

- AFP