Cholera epidemic hits 3,000 Burundi refugees in Tanzania – UN
About 3,000 refugees fleeing political turmoil in Burundi have been infected in a cholera epidemic in neighboring Tanzania, the United Nations said on Friday, stoking fears of a growing humanitarian crisis in Africa's Great Lakes, Reuters reports.
Up to 400 new cases of the deadly disease were emerging every day, the UN's refugee agency UNHCR said, mainly in Tanzania's Kagunga peninsula where tens of thousands of Burundians have taken refuge, often in squalid conditions.
A Tanzanian health official told Reuters on Wednesday that at least 33 people had died from cholera in Tanzania near Lake Tanganyika.
"The epidemic is still worsening. To date some 3,000 cases have been reported, and numbers are increasing at 300-400 new cases per day, particularly in Kagunga and nearby areas," UN refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards told journalists on Thursday.
Some cases had also been reported in Burundi, he said, without elaborating.