Spread of cholera worries minister

HEALTH Minister Sasa Zibe has declared a public health emergency for Central province as the cholera outbreak continues to spread.
Zibe made the declaration yesterday following an approval by the National Executive Council (NEC).
The NEC has appointed provincial administrator Raphael Yipmaramba as the controller and provincial health manager Michael Uaiz as deputy controller.
He also announced that a total of K4.1 million had been allocated for the public health emergencies for the National Capital District (NCD) and Central.
The Health Department had given K120,000 to the Central government this week to begin work to address the outbreak.
The department also allowed the provincial government to set up another cholera treatment centre in Laloki next to the Laloki Psychiatric Hospital.
Central Governor Alphonse Moroi said the declaration came after he questioned Zibe in Parliament last week on the measures taken by health authorities to contain the disease in the province.
“The important factor is that the affected areas (Lealea and Papa) are in the liquefied natural gas project area. If we are not careful, it (cholera) could wipe out the people in the project area,” Moroi said.
“At that time when I raised the questions in Parliament, cases were reported and I wanted the minister to recognise Central’s need to have its own cholera treatment centre,” he said.
He said with the geographical and landmass of the province, “we consider ourselves to be in an awkward situation that if we do not have any contingency plan in place, we are sitting on a time bomb”.
He added that his health officers had already developed a plan and it would be used as a guide to the break up of the funds into areas of containing cholera.
Zibe stressed on the fact that PNG had the lowest health indicators in the world and was bound to face such diseases.
“Some diseases have gone away and resurfaced, so we must prepare ourselves to be vigilant to contain this disease. Because of the close connection with NCD, it is bound to happen,” he said.
“We can only hope the disease will not spread to the neighbouring Gulf.”
Since the outbreak last year, Morobe recorded 750 cases with 32 deaths; Madang 1,294 cases with seven deaths; East Sepik 802 cases with 20 deaths; Eastern Highlands and West Sepik one case each with no deaths.