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Momodou
Denmark
11785 Posts |
 Posted - 12 Feb 2010 : 21:08:32
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No Cholera out Break in Town
By Lamin Njie & Saikou Ceesay
The public is hereby assured that there is no out break of cholera in the country and that health facilities around the length and breadth of The Gambia are on high alert.
Annually, thousands of Gambians and Senegalese residents in the country travel to Touba in Senegal to attend a religious festival called magal. But one disease that normally accompanies these returnees is cholera. So, to find out whether there was any reported case of cholera in the country this time around, these reporters visited the Medical and Health Department in Banjul and caught up with Sana Sambou, Programme Manager, disease control and this is what he said.
“In relation to any rumour pertaining to cholera out break in The Gambia or Senegal at the moment is not to our knowledge. There is that cordial relationship between us and the Senegalese authorities when it comes to disease surveillance. Any thing pertaining to out breaks everybody in the sub-region is informed. This is the WHO standard out line for all countries. When ever you have a problem the sub-region has to know about it. Because of international travel, you cannot restrict people from moving out of there country even where as you have a serious problem. So what we can do is to inform others to be prepared for any eventualities. So that is the situation now,” he said.
Mr.Sambou further stressed that as at now there is no case of cholera in town and that they have received no such information from Senegal or the sub-region as a whole.
He explained that Senegal has done a lot of improvements and this has actually minimized the problem not like in the past when people are faced with acute water shortage while in Touba as well as the unfriendly sanitary environment.
“All of us have been viewing the TV in Senegal and we saw all the developments that have taken place to improve the situation. This has helped them a lot over the years. Since last year or the year before we haven’t gone into any major problem, there was no specific out break of cholera in Senegal or The Gambia,” he said.
But despite these positive developments registered over the years, Sambou told Daily News that his office does not sit and wait for any out breaks but that they have their surveillance teams at the borders who work hand in glove with their partners to see to it that everything is well coordinated.
“We are expecting people to return from Senegal and may come with cholera, not necessarily cholera alone but other potential diseases in the sub-region that are put under surveillance. So let people know that this country is well prepared for any disease out breaks. This is the only thing we can do. We have to keep our borders very strong other wise when there is a problem is difficult to handle especially in the event of lack of resources like drugs, the trained human resource to be able to detect and to respond to all those kinds of things. Our health facilities are not very much prepared because of this lack of resources; all the same we will do our best to address these problems by providing training for our staff.
Sambou finally called on the public to be cooperative and report to any health facilities if they suspect any cholera symptoms in them like profuse watery diahoerra.
Source: DailyNews
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