A diarrhoea outbreak is affecting remote villages and IDP camps in parts of El-waq district of southern Somalia’s Gedo region, according to medical staff at the only health centre in the area.
The manager of El-waq hospital, Dr Mohamud Mukhtar, told Radio Ergo that two children died of diarrhoea this week in Garsal village, 35 km south of El-waq.
He said 27 people, including 14 women and 12 children, were being treated in the hospital. The patients came from IDP camps as well as rural villages in El-waq district.
Abukar Adan, who lives in Garsal, has spent six days in the hospital with his sick 10-year old son and six-year old daughter. He hired a donkey cart at $15 to bring them to El-waq. He said many people were sick in his village, which has no health centre.
Dr Mohamud said diarrhoeal disease was spreading in the area because people were drinking from water catchments that had been contaminated after recent rainfall. Flowing water was washing dirt and waste into the catchments. Children were vulnerable to infection as they were already weak from under nourishment in the camps.
Fadumo Abdi, a mother of six from Kartun-dhooble village, 87 km east of El-waq, said her last born daughter was recovering after being treated in hospital for six days for diarrhoea. She travelled to El-waq two weeks ago by donkey cart.
Fadumo’s family lost 43 goats and cows in the drought and had been struggling to get enough food. She knew of around 20 people in her village with diarrhoea, who were taken to other health centres in El-waq.
