Dhaka says Rohingya diarrhoea outbreak under control
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COX'S BAZAR (Bangladesh) • Bangla-desh officials said yesterday they have contained a diarrhoea outbreak that has killed four Rohingya refugees and infected over 1,500 others on an island camp which has alarmed rights groups and the United Nations.
Bangladesh has shifted 18,000 refugees to low-lying Bhashan Char from cramped settlements on the mainland. But many of those relocated say they were coerced, and that health and other facilities on the silt island, in an area frequently hit by deadly cyclones, are poor.
Officials and Rohingya sources said the diarrhoea broke out early this month after the first heavy monsoon rains.
At least four people have died over the last two weeks, two officials on the island said, including a 20-year woman and three children.
Dr Rahat Tanvir Anwar, a doctor from the sole 20-bed clinic on the island, said at least 1,550 people - nearly 10 per cent of those on the island - had been infected and some 600 needed hospital treatment.
"The situation has improved. We have added 10 more beds in the hospital to treat patients. On Thursday, there were only 14 diarrhoea patients in the hospital," he said.
A regional health chief said the outbreak was contained after the authorities quickly distributed 33,000 water purification tablets and 35,000 doses of oral rehydration solution.
One Rohingya man on the island, who declined to be named, said that doctors only gave his three-year-old son saline solution and told him to take the boy home.
The doctor "told me to buy the medicine from a pharmacy. But it takes money to buy medicine. Where can I get money? Later, I went to a pharmacy. But there is no medicine there. My baby is still sick", he said.
Mr Saad Hammadi from Amnesty International blamed the "hurried relocation of thousands of Rohingya refugees to the island without letting rights and humanitarian groups carry out independent assessment of the conditions on the island".
Bangladesh has rejected the allegations that Rohingya have been relocated forcibly and says conditions on the island are much better than on the mainland, where 850,000 refugees are crammed into camps.
The authorities plan to eventually move 100,000 of them to Bhashan Char.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
