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U.N. sees major health risks from African floods

Last Updated: 2006-12-08 11:01:40 -0400 (Reuters Health)

GENEVA - Up to 1.8 million people are at risk from cholera, measles, malaria and other killer diseases following major floods across the Horn of Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

The United Nations agency said it was deeply concerned about health conditions in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia after heavy rains in October and November damaged water and sanitation systems there and forced people into crowded living spaces.At least 150 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced by the worst floods for years across the region.Reports of diarrhoeal diseases, malaria, and acute respiratory infections have risen two- to three-fold, the WHO said, without giving figures. Cholera has been reported in the region and would spread if floods continue into early 2007, it added."We are already experiencing a serious situation where people are dying from diseases related to the water and sanitation situation. Malaria will become a very serious problem in the weeks to come," David Okello, the WHO's representative in Kenya, said in a statement.Many health problems are endemic to the region, which is especially vulnerable because of its low vaccination coverage rates, WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told journalists in Geneva. It also lacks laboratory facilities to quickly confirm the outbreak of epidemic-prone diseases.The UNHCR refugee agency said that with the help of the U.S. military it would make an emergency airdrop of 240 tonnes of aid to help thousands of people in the flooded Dadaab refugee camps in northern Kenya.The aid would include plastic sheets, blankets and mosquito nets for the camp's 130,000 mainly Somali refugees who have been cut off for weeks.UNICEF, the United Nations children's agency, said on Friday it urgently needed $24.2 million to provide emergency health, nutrition, water and other supplies to the Horn of Africa after the floods.It also cited concern about tension between Somalia and Ethiopia which it said could trigger widespread displacement within Somalia and into flood-affected northeastern Kenya, further exacerbating health and humanitarian problems.

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