By Sovereign Hager
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor-News

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea- A cholera outbreak, which started in August of 2009 appears to be getting worse. There have been over 600 cases reported since August and reports of the disease are no longer only appearing in rural areas. There have been reports of the disease in the capital city of Port Moresby.

The government declared a public health emergency in August after there were reports that public funds to fight the disease were “dried up.”  The spread of the disease to urban areas has been linked to sanitation problems.

A health expert told Radio News Australia that in “the urban areas you’ve got a lot of settlement areas, low income settlement areas, and also enclaves of squatter settlements and these are generally not well serviced with good quality water and sanitation standards.”

When asked about government preparedness for such an outbreak, the government stressed that Papua New Guinea has “very limited resources within its health care sector . . . they generally have a high burden of health related issues, things like malaria, TB, HIV Aids etc . . . when diseases like this come along, they really have to divert resources from those areas to deal.”

Government officials are calling for multi-sector collaboration to combat the disease aggressively.

For more information, please see:

Top News-Cholera Outbreak in Papua New Guinea’s Capital Port Moresby-4 June 2010

Radio News Australia-Death Toll Rises from PNG Cholera Epidemic-3 June 2010

Radio News Australia-Poor Sanitation and Water Quality Fuelling-3 June 2010