KENYA: Relief agencies organise airdrop aid for flood victims in Kenya

Up to 1.8 million people are at risk from cholera, measles, malaria and other killer diseases following major floods across the Horn of Africa according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The United Nations agency said it was deeply concerned about health conditions in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia after heavy rains in October and November damaged water and sanitation systems there and forced people into crowded living spaces. On Saturday (December 9) the U.S. military made the first drop of 240 tonnes of aid to help thousands of people in the flooded Dadaab refugee camps in northern Kenya. The aid includes plastic sheets, blankets and mosquito nets for the camp's 130,000 mainly Somali refugees who have been cut off for weeks. UNICEF, the United Nations children's agency, said on Friday it urgently needed $24.2 million to provide emergency health, nutrition, water and other supplies to the Horn of Africa after the floods. It also cited concern about tension between Somalia and Ethiopia which it said could trigger widespread displacement within Somalia and into flood-affected northeastern Kenya, further exacerbating health and humanitarian problems At least 150 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced by the worst floods for years across the region. Reports of diarrhoeal diseases, malaria, and acute respiratory infections have risen two- to three-fold, the WHO said, without giving figures. Cholera has been reported in the region and would spread if floods continue into early 2007, it added. "People are dying from diseases related to the water and sanitation situation. Malaria will become a very serious problem in the weeks to come," David Okello, the WHO's representative in Kenya, said in a statement. Many health problems are endemic to the region, which is especially vulnerable because of its low vaccination coverage rates, WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told journalists in Geneva. It also lacks laboratory facilities to quickly confirm the outbreak of epidemic-prone diseases. "We have taken these measure to try and bring in supplies in through an airdrop, it's a very extraordinary thing to do and we been forced to do because the road to Garrissa has been cut by the flooding and the road is still flooded so it will be a period of time before we can get any heavy trucks through," said Gordon Denoon of the Care International charity.

ITN Source | December 9, 2006

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