Medicines rushed to cholera-hit region in Philippines

Manila: Philippine health workers headed to a remote southern township on Thursday to battle an outbreak of cholera that killed 20 people and left 147 others ill, an official said.

Most of the victims of the outbreak in several mountainous hamlets near Palimbang town in Sultan Kudarat province were children, Mayor Samrud Mamansual said.

He said the first deaths were reported on Monday in the village of Milbuk, about 1,000km south of Manila, among members of the Manobo tribe who get their drinking water from a waterfall.

The head of the Health Department's epidemiology centre, Dr Eric Tayag, said a team of health workers was on its way to the area with badly needed medicines.

"Right now we're focused on preventing deaths," he told The Associated Press, adding he did not believe the outbreak would spread. "We don't expect this to get any worse."

He said 20 people had died and 147 were ill.

Dehydration

Red Cross volunteer Marilou Torres, who visited the area on Thursday, said those who died succumbed to severe dehydration and that all victims suffered from diarrhoea and vomiting.

The area is so remote that it takes five hours by car to reach Palimbang from General Santos City, the nearest medical centre 160km away, plus another four-hour hike to get to the villages, Torres said.

She said the Red Cross discovered the cases after trying to check a report that seven people had died from hunger in Palimbang.

A similar outbreak in the neighbouring village of Ligaw three months ago killed eight people and sickened 60 others.