Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Morobe’s Angau Hospital on full alert in response to disease outbreak

Posted at 02:14 on 04 September, 2009 UTC

Angau Hospital in Lae in Papua New Guinea’s Morobe province has gone on full alert because cholera-like diarrhoea cases have been reported at the outpatients’ department.

Cholera has been affecting villages in Wasu on Morobe’s north coast where eight people have died and more than 80 people are infected.

Meanwhile, further inland in Morobe’s Menyamya area, at least 80 people have died and nearly 3000 are affected by flu and dysentery.

The Post Courier reports that the National Department of Health and the WHO have been flying medical supplies into Wasu to combat the cholera outbreak, while medical teams are already in Menyamya waiting for helicopters to fly them to remote villages.

Angau Hospital has erected three field hospitals and a command centre in preparation for the airlift of seriously ill dysentery and influenza patients from Menyamya.