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Internally displaced Somalis carry their belongings - Source: Reuters -
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Five million people are at risk of cholera in drought-hit Ethiopia.
Acute watery diarrhoea has broken out in crowded, unsanitary conditions, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported yesterday.
Cholera, an acute intestinal infection, causes watery diarrhoea that can quickly lead to severe dehydration and death if treatment is not promptly given, according to the United Nations agency.
"Overall, 8.8 million people are at risk of malaria and 5 million of cholera (in Ethiopia)," WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in a note sent to journalists.
Ethiopian health officials have confirmed cases of acute watery diarrhoea in the Somali, Afar and Oromiya regions of Ethiopia, he said.
"It is not confined to the refugees."
WHO is delivering emergency health kits to Ethiopia and helping train health workers in treating malnutrition and in detecting disease outbreaks, he said.
Drought across the Horn of Africa, now affecting more than 11 million people in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia, has increased the risk of the spread of infectious diseases, especially polio, cholera and measles, the WHO said.
"So far WHO has not received any report of polio cases, it really important to help countries to keep their polio-free status," Jasarevic said.
Somalis fleeing severe drought and intensified fighting have been arriving at the rate of more than 1700 a day in Ethiopia, where 4.5 million people now need assistance, nearly a 50% rise since April, he said.
Measles risk
Two million children in Ethiopia are at risk of catching measles, a disease that can be deadly in children, he said.
Ethiopian officials reported 17,584 measles cases and 114 deaths during the first half of the year, UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado said.
The majority of cases were in children.
Measles has also broken out in the sprawling Kenyan Dadaab camps, with 462 cases confirmed including 11 deaths, Jasarevic said.
Dadaab, an overcrowded complex of three camps, now holds some 380,000 refugees, the UN refugee agency said yesterday.
UNHCR plans to begin a massive airlift this weekend to bring tents and other aid supplies to the remote border region, spokesman Adrian Edwards told a news briefing.
A Boeing 747 flight carrying 100 tonnes of tents is expected to land in Nairobi tomorrow, he said. Six further flights were planned over the next two weeks.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres welcomed an announcement by Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Friday (NZT) that Kenya is to open an extension to the camps to ease congestion at Dadaab, where 1300 Somali refugees arrive daily.
"It will prevent congestion increasing further in the short term. Obviously larger needs relate to the need to undertake humanitarian efforts inside Somalia itself," Edwards said.
The United Nations carried out its first airlift of emergency supplies in two years to southern Somalia - an area controlled by al Shabaab rebels - on Thursday (NZT), UNICEF said.
"Ten health kits, each sufficient to treat 10,000 people over 3 months are also en route via road," Mercado said.
Calling on the world
Meanwhile, a British conservative MP is calling on the world community to do more to help people in drought-hit east Africa avoid what he calls a catastrophe.
Andrew Mitchell is currently visiting the Dadaab camp in Kenya, which is overflowing with tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the parched landscapes in the region, where Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya meet.
"These levels of malnutrition that we are seeing amongst children and mothers with very young children are almost unprecedented," he said.
Aid organisation Oxfam says at least $800 million worth of aid is needed to avoid a humanitarian crisis becoming a full blown disaster.
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