UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- Rescue and U.N. humanitarian agencies Monday battled a cholera outbreak at the Pabbo refugee camp in northern Uganda that has already claimed three lives and infected as many as 800 others, said the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
So far only 79 cases were confirmed to have been infected with cholera in the camp, which is near the bustling city of Gulu, Uganda. But U.N. officials expect that number to rise in the coming weeks, according to Brian Grogan, humanitarian affairs officer at OCHA, at U.N. World Headquarters in New York.
The proximity of Gulu, with a population of 500,000, increases fears the disease could become widespread because of the free movement of workers and displaced residents entering and leaving the confines of the camp daily.
"The refugees are moving in and out of the camp, so they could be spreading the disease around to neighboring villages," Grogan said. "One died in a nearby town, adjacent to the camp."
Latrines near sites for drinking water, which were likely sources for the cholera bacteria, were scheduled to be chlorinated and later destroyed, OCHA said.
The cholera bacteria, which infects the intestines and may cause severe, dehydrating diarrhea, can spread rapidly through drinking water. While existing remedies are effective and simple, a cholera infection can be fatal if left untreated.
Doctors Without Borders, a non-profit medical relief organization, opened a cholera treatment center near the camp and was scheduled to begin taking new cases Tuesday.
Other groups, such as UNICEF, the U.N. Children's Fund, are implementing education programs to curb the disease's spread in the north of this African nation. Refugees need to be taught simple habits like hand washing before food preparation, Grogan said.
"Unfortunately, some still believe things like cholera comes during the day and leaves at night. They are very much in need of education about this," he said, alluding to local beliefs diseases are transmitted only during daylight hours.
Pabbo, one of the largest of Uganda's approximately 200 camps for internally displaced persons, was home to about 67,000 refugees, of which 80 percent were women or children.
Uganda suffers one of the world's highest rates of displacement, according to Jan Egeland, undersecretary-general for U.N. Humanitarian Affairs and the world organization's chief emergency relief coordinator.
At least 1.6 million people in northern Uganda have been displaced, as many as in Darfur, Sudan, he said in a statement to the U.N. Security Council last month.
In some regions of Uganda, such as Gulu, 90 percent of the population has been displaced to refugee camps as a result of an 18-year power struggle waged by a group called the Lord's Resistance Army.
Led by Joseph Kony, the LRA is fighting to gain control over Uganda and to implement a government guided by the Ten Commandments.
The LRA gained notoriety for abducting young children from their homes to become soldiers or sex slaves, often after executing or maiming their parents. More than 20,000 children under 18 years of age have been abducted by the LRA, accounting for about 80 percent of their soldiers, according to Egeland.
GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based Web site of a group dedicated to innovative military strategies aimed at reducing conflicts, said more than 500,000 people in the northern Uganda districts of Gulu and Kitgum have been displaced.
