Jan 29.2006
Cholera kills 18 children in Bonthe
Eighteen children are reported to have died of diarrhea in fishing villages around Delken it’s surrounding in the Bonthe district, southern Sierra Leone over the past week.
This epidemic is reported to have affected over one thousand people of whom thirty are children in that area. An emergency medical response team from the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and World Vision-Sierra Leone has been dispatched to the area to carry out curative and preventive treatment.
Elizabeth Domboi, nurse in charge of health and sanitation confirmed that the epidemic killed 18 children before native herbalists put it under control. She complained that local residents in the district have negative response towards conventional treatment.
Councilor Samuel Brandon blamed the Ministry of Health and Sanitation for not providing the people with adequate health facility; which he claimed would have helped to save the lives of the children.
However Murana Koroma of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation warned local residents to use conventional treatment, as it is the best and safest means to cure Diarrhea, Cholera, and other epidemic.
Meanwhile survivors who cannot withstand the herbal treatment have been transferred to other health centers within the district. It must be recalled that 10 years ago an outbreak of diarrhea and cholera claimed the lives of more than 50 people in villages around Bonthe and part of neighboring Moyamba district.
What this story can’t begin to convey is how difficult it is to reach Bonthe or Moyamba, and how hard it is to get to most of the villages once you are there. Travel is by deeply rutted dirt roads and sometimes by boat. Government clinics are relatively few compared to the thousands of traditional healers.
SLENTHA (the Sierra LEoNe Traditional Healers Association) is increasingly cooperating with the ministry of health in the provision of care, but old antagonism between traditional and allopathic medicine runs deep.