A World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion of­fi­cial in Africa is urg­ing more sup­port to coun­tries fac­ing cholera out­breaks, say­ing the dis­ease has the po­ten­tial to “quick­ly ex­plode” as rain­fall per­sists in some ar­eas.

Dr. Patrick Otim, a WHO of­fi­cial mon­i­tor­ing emer­gen­cies, said cholera out­breaks were po­ten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous be­cause of the short in­cu­ba­tion pe­ri­od and the in­volve­ment of con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed wa­ter sources.

“So it’s very im­por­tant that we sup­port these coun­tries to be able to re­spond at the point where the out­breaks have not be­come too big,” he said.

Cholera has been re­port­ed in 12 of Africa’s 54 coun­tries. South Africa, Tan­za­nia and Zim­bab­we are the lat­est to de­tect cas­es. Malawi, with hun­dreds of cholera deaths, faces its worst out­break ever.

The is­land na­tion of Mada­gas­car, the vic­tim of two de­struc­tive cy­clones this year, al­so faces a con­cern­ing out­break.

Cholera is a wa­ter-borne dis­ease. In­creased rain­fall in coun­tries such as Malawi is slow­ing con­trol ef­forts in some ar­eas, said Dr. Mat­shidiso Moeti, the WHO re­gion­al di­rec­tor for Africa.

By ROD­NEY MUHU­MUZA

KAM­PALA, Ugan­da (AP)