NAIROBI, 20 March 2007 (IRIN) - An outbreak of acute watery diarrhoea in and around the town of Bardhere, southwestern Somalia, has killed at least 80 people in the past three weeks, medical sources said on Tuesday.

"Fifteen people have died in hospital and over 70 died in the town and the villages around it," Bashir Usman, a doctor in the town, said.

The Bardhere hospital, which has not functioned properly for the past 10 years, is being used as a treatment centre for Bardhere and surrounding villages, Usman said.

A cholera task force was set up by the authorities two weeks ago to deal with the outbreak, according to Abdifatah Muhammad Ali, of Himilo Relief and Development Association, a local non-governmental agency and part of the task force.

"We have been delivering ORS [oral rehydration salts] to the outlying villages to those who are suffering the most, and transporting others to the treatment centre," he added.

Usman said since the registration began 10 days ago, the hospital had recorded 630 cases.

"That, however, does not necessarily reflect the real numbers," he said. "Our information is that many more people, who are unable to get to the treatment centre, are dying around Bardhere and in the villages."

Usman blamed the outbreak on contaminated water drawn from wells. "We suspect the problem is the water people are drinking," he said.

Floods, mostly in late 2006, displaced thousands of people in the region, with large tracts of farmland and water points submerged.

Ali said the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Médecins Sans Frontières-Spain had provided ORS and water chlorination tablets. He said a local NGO, Water Development Committee, had started chlorinating the wells in the town and in many of the affected villages.

Usman said they had enough oral rehydration salts, "but if the situation does not improve soon, we will need to get more resources to contain the outbreak".

He said they had noticed a drop in the cases coming into the hospital. "In the last 24 hours we have recorded 17 cases, as compared to 30-40 cases in the past."

In a report last week, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for Somalia said: "Between 1 January and 10 March, the number of acute watery diarrhoea cases registered in south/central was 5,542, with 252 deaths."

It said fatalities were decreasing in most regions, but the capital, Mogadishu, "remains an area of serious concern, due to difficulties in accessing affected populations".

The self-declared autonomous area of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, is also experiencing an increase in cases of acute watery diarrhoea, "with 504 cases and 19 deaths reported between 26 February and 14 March", OCHA said.

ah/mw

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