Cholera outbreak hits Bongo Island

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Laboratory results have confirmed that cholera afflicted last week 67 villagers, 51 of them children, in Bongo Island in Maguindanao.

Physician Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., secretary of the Department of Health in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said stool samples from the victims tested positive for Cholera.

An elderly woman and a three-year-old child died from the outbreak in Tuka Marur in Bongo, some five kilometers off Parang town in the first district of Maguindanao.

The cholera victims reside in a seaside village where folks fetch water for cooking and drinking from deep wells.

Sinolinding said the wells were made murky and unsafe by heavy rains three days before victims started complaining of painful abdominal spasms and loose bowel movement.

Monina Macarongon, a senior staff of Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, said the provincial government released Monday an initial P50,000 cash assistance for the patients confined  at the Cotabato Regional Medical Center.

Macarongon said the office of Mangudadatu and the mayor of Parang, Ibrahim Ibay,  will initiate a study on viable water system projects in Bongo to ensure a steady supply of safe drinking water for villagers.

Sinolinding said health workers are now engaged in an information campaign to educate residents of Bongo to prevent the spread of Cholera in the island.  - John Unson