Cholera Stalks Monrovia as Peace Treaty Signed

NEW YORK, New York, August 18, 2003 (ENS) - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today welcomed the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement for Liberia and called on all parties to seize the opportunity to work together to restore peace and stability in the country which has been wracked by war for 14 years.

Through a statement released by a UN spokesman in New York, Annan thanked the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), his Special Representative for West Africa, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, and the United States government for assisting the Liberian parties in reaching the agreement, which was signed earlier today in Accra, Ghana.

But as the peace agreement for Liberia was signed, on the streets of Monrovia cholera is taking its toll due to contaminated drinking water supplies.

A five person team from the World Health Organization (WHO) is in Monrovia assessing the cholera situation, visiting cholera treatment centres and sanitation and water facilities.

Liberians displaced by weeks of intense fighting wait for help. (Photo courtesy World Food Programme)

At WHO headquarters in Geneva on Saturday, a meeting of the Liberian Cholera Outbreak Subcommittee said the chlorination of community wells, which could not take place because of escalation of fighting over the past month, will have to restart immediately. Participants emphasized the necessity to train community members to continue the chlorination regularly.

There is an "urgent need" for hygiene and health education on cholera prevention and control in the camps and communities filled with internally displaced persons (IDP). Health education materials will be distributed via the mass media, group meetings, and the use of public address systems.

The WHO team, including Drs. Omar Khatib, Andre Enzanza, James Teprey, Fantorma Bolay and Josselin Vincent, visited the Masonic hall IDP camp area, to observe active chlorination of buckets and wells. The community wells at this place vary from six to 10 meters in depth and are chlorinated every two days, or if not direct chlorination in the bucket was done, "but surely not concentrated enough," the team said in its report to WHO.

Medical Emergency Relief International distributed the chlorine and some private well owners purchased theirs from the open market but there is no guarantee regarding its origin or disinfection efficacy, the team said.

"Those wells are in a dirty environment - garbage, latrines are less than 50 meters away, no drainage - and very sensitive to pollution. Therefore in case of rain they are likely to be contaminated rapidly," the team reported.

There have been cholera outbreaks in previous years in Monrovia, especially during the rainy season, but the increased level of malnutrition following the fighting has added to the risk of more severe cases of cholera.

"Management and burial procedures of dead bodies from cholera have to be addressed urgently," the WHO subcommittee warned.

Secretary-General Annan called on the wider international community to support the Liberian parties in their efforts to return to peace so that the urgenthumanitarian needs of the Liberian people can be met. "The United Nations is presently making every effort to assist with the overwhelming humanitarian needs of the country," Annan said.

Following the end of hostilities in Monrovia, the United Nations World Food Programme is preparing to launch a massively expanded emergency operation to provide aid to over half a million people across the city.

In Abidjan, Ivory Coast food aid is loaded aboard a UN World Food Programme plane bound for Monrovia. (Photo courtesy WFP)

The thousands of tons of food now in the port of Monrovia must be distributed urgently to avert a menacing humanitarian disaster, Christoph Harnisch, delegate general for Africa of the International Committee of the Red Cross, told reporters in Geneva 10 days ago.

"The country has suffered a degree of neglect rarely seen on the African continent," he said. The help provided by the few who had continued to care for the sick and wounded, and for the displaced, was "no more than a drop in the ocean."

An exception to that neglect is the World Food Programme airlift launched August 2 to provide high energy biscuits as an emergency ration to thousands of the most vulnerable people in and around Monrovia. More than nine tons of biscuits were brought in during the first 10 days, enough to feed over 75,000 people.

The United Nations is planning for a peacekeeping operation to take over from the multinational force authorized last month by the Security Council.