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Kenya confirms 216 deaths from cholera outbreak

Xinhua, April 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

Kenya's health ministry confirmed on Friday that 216 people have died from an outbreak of cholera since December last year.

Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Health Nicholas Muraguri revealed the country registered a total of 13,299 cases across 28 counties.

He said that multiple peaks have been observed as the outbreak spreads to new counties since it was first reported in Nairobi, showing propagated transmission.

He said a total of 259 new cases were reported in the last one week in various health facilities in parts of the country.

However, the official said that 16 counties so far have managed to successfully contain the outbreak of the disease. "Even though the disease continues being reported in some parts of the country, no death has been reported in the past one week," he said.

"There are 103 current admissions in North Eastern, Central and Western Kenya health facilities and they are expected to be discharged soon," Muraguri added.

The official said that the ministry has launched surveillance in the community to ensure new cases are timely detected and household water treatment supply and dosing of wells with chlorine is being undertaken.

The government is also up-scaling solid and human waste management in Wajir and Garissa in northeastern Kenya besides conducting monthly community clean-up campaigns and disinfecting sanitary facilities.

"We are doing case management, contact tracing and provision of chemoprophylaxis to contacts and the affected counties have identified health facilities and set up Cholera Treatment Units for case management," he added.

Muraguri added that all the affected counties are submitting updated line lists on a daily basis and deliver reports on a weekly basis.

He said that since the outbreak, technical support teams from the Ministry headquarters have been camping at the affected counties. Enditem