Cholera epidemic in Angola spreading rapidly - WHO

GENEVA, May 18 (Reuters) A cholera epidemic in Angola is spreading rapidly, with 546 new cases including 31 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, the World Health Organisation (WHO) today.

The epidemic, which has killed nearly 1,300 people in three months, is infecting an average of about 600 people each day, about half of the cases reported in the capital Luanda, it said.

''In the last 24 hours, 546 new cases including 31 deaths have been reported,'' the United Nations agency said in an update on its site www.who.int which put the known death toll at 1,298.

The water-borne disease, which erupted in mid-February, has been found in 11 of 18 provinces of the country, emerging from decades of civil war which devastated water and sanitation systems, the WHO said.

Claire-Lise Chaignat, WHO's global cholera coordinator, told Reuters: ''It is huge outbreak.

''But in certain provinces, in Luanda for example, we have the feeling that the first peak is behind us, there has been a decline in the number of cases,'' she said.

This was due to less rain, which spreads the disease, according to the Swiss expert. ''But that doesn't mean it won't peak again,'' she added.

Cholera, an acute intestinal infection spread by contaminated water or food, causes vomiting and acute diarrhoea that can lead to dehydration and death within 24 hours if not treated swiftly with antibiotics and oral rehydration salts.

''With cholera you have to react very quickly, you can't wait two days for treatment, you will be dead by then. If you have to walk two days to a health care facility, with vomiting and watery diarrhoea, you probably can't make it,'' Chaignat said.

As the disease had not appeared in Angola for years, the population has only partial immunity, leaving people much more vulnerable, the expert said.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) charged yesterday that Angola -- sub-Saharan Africa's second largest oil producer behind Nigeria -- had responded slowly to the epidemic and should spend more of its wealth on saving victims' lives.

The medical charity also said that deaths from cholera were probably two to three times more than the reported toll.

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