Niger faces an outbreak of deadly diseases including cholera as food shortages affecting millions of people in the West African country worsen, the United Nations’ top health body said on Friday.
Drought and locust invasions last year wiped out crops in one of the world’s poorest countries. Now poor sanitation was expected to aggravate the spread of disease among the estimated 3.6 million who are going hungry.
Already five deaths have resulted from 49 reported cases of cholera in the mainly desert country on the fringes of the Sahara, said Pino Annunziata, a medical expert at the U.N.’s Geneva-based World Health Organization.
More deaths from tuberculoses, malaria, measles and diarrhea are expected, he told a media briefing. “We are expecting an increased number of communicable diseases and an increase in the number of deaths,” Annunziata said. “The number of deaths can reach a dramatic rate.”
High death rate from cholera
The cholera death rate — over 10 percent of reported cases in Niger compared to a normal rate of 2 percent — indicates how easily transmittable diseases are able to ravage those weakened by malnutrition, he said.
“This is already indicator that those diseases are affecting very weak human bodies,” he said. “A shortage of food means an increase in vulnerability for the human body.”
Aid workers say almost a million children are suffering from malnutrition this year, with 150,000 so badly underfed that they could die without emergency assistance. No national data exists, but doctors estimate hundreds have died already.
Slow donor response
Government officials in Niger and international aid workers say a slow response from donor countries to months of appeals has allowed the situation to spiral to emergency proportions, sharply increasing the cost of saving lives.
Annunziata said the United Nations plans to more than double its original appeal for $400,000 in emergency donations to assist its efforts in Niger.
The money would provide medicine and financial assistance to Nigerian health authorities struggling to adapt their fee-based medical system to the needs of a crisis, he said.
