Sep 5 2005
According to health officials, people still stranded by Hurricane Katrina face a serious risk of dysentery and other diseases from contaminated water, and there have already been reports of an outbreak of dysentery in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Experts say the lack of clean drinking water in parts of the Gulf coast region, and stagnant floodwaters contaminated with decomposing bodies and human waste in the streets of New Orleans, could lead to outbreaks of infectious diseases, including West Nile virus and the often fatal E coli bacterium.
Officials have apparently closed a shelter in Biloxi because more than 20 people have become ill with dysentery from using contaminated water, while another 20 people in the area were also treated for vomiting and diarrhoea.
The shelter has been without water and power since Katrina hit a week ago, and it is thought as many as 400 people have been staying there.
Doctors believe warnings to stay away from the running water which was restored late on Friday, but was not safe to drink or even to use to brush teeth or wash, have been ignored.
It seems that most of the patients were treated with antibiotics, but 30 of the affected residents were taken to a hospital in Mobile, Alabama, while the rest were taken by bus to a shelter in Thomasville, Georgia.
Local health officials say the situation is a catastrophe, and experts say the threat of disease was not from the corpses but from those living in squalid conditions without clean water, and the risk of disease transmission comes from the surviving population.