Via allAfrica.com, an AFP report from Radio Netherlands Worldwide: Congo-Kinshasa: Spike in Cholera Cases - UN.
Cholera cases have soared in the Democratic Republic of Congo in recent weeks, the UN said on Friday, bringing the number of people infected in the year-long outbreak to 22,000 with 584 deaths.
Aid agencies have been trying to halt the spread of the water-borne disease that has ravaged eight of the country's 11 provinces since January 2011.
"There has been a spike in cases" since mid-December, with figures on the rise in the capital Kinshasa in particular, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
Cholera, a contagious intestinal infection, has taken its heaviest toll on eastern regions however, with a quarter of all cases reported in Sud-Kivu province.
The UN Central Emergency Response Fund has allotted $4.4 million to children's aid agency UNICEF and $4.7 million to the World Health Organisation to help combat its spread.
