Cholera outbreak in Accra ?

At least 100 people across Accra have reported to hospitals with cases of cholera.

One person is said to have died from a suspected outbreak of the disease due to poor sanitation.

Health officials have told Joy News there is an early outbreak, which the public must be warned about.

The Greater Accra Regional Senior Medical Officer, Dr Edward Antwi says a warning has been sent to affected areas for sanitation problems to be attended to.

Joy News on Monday toured some of the affected areas such as Chorkor, Agbogbloshie, Korle Gonno, Mamprobi, Agege, Maamobi, Dansoman, Banana Inn and Mc Cathy Hill.

The message doesn't seem to have reached people in these areas.

When Joy News got to Chorkor, a suburb in the heart of Accra, there were sights of choked gutters in front of compound houses with families of about eight living in the same room.

Flies drone away in black grimy silt dredged from nauseous stench of the open gutters.

Joy News realised that there are no sanitary facilities and black polythene bags have been used to wrap parcels of feaces.

In a related development reports of a cholera outbreak in Ghana's second biggest city Kumasi say the number has soared from 78 to 212 on Monday morning.

Medical officials in the Ashanti regional capital Kumasi are being quoted as saying five people have died in a cholera outbreak in the Garden City. Reports over the weekend said the five people died at the Komfo Anokye Hospital and the SDA church in Kwadaso, both in Kumasi.

The Kumasi Metropolitan Director of Health Services, Dr. Joseph Oduro is quoted, as saying there were about 100 reported cholera cases in the metropolis in last three days.

Meanwhile the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KATH) says it is overwhelmed with cholera cases since the recent outbreak. Speaking to Joy News, the Public Relations Officer of the hospital, Mustapha Salifu said a makeshift centre temporarily set up to handle the incoming cholera cases has become overstretched.

This is because the number of incoming cholera cases has become overstretched because of the influx of over 60 cases from all over the metropolis since September 22,2005.

Mr Salifu said other authorities of other health facilities should try and manage the cholera cases reported to them rather than referring them to Korle-Bu.

“ Health information has been going on since we first detected the first case of the disease. So health personnel have been to the affected communities and have been giving them health information while vehicles with public address systems have also been going round,” he said.