Associated Press — Papua New Guinea's cholera outbreak has spread to 2,000 people, a World Health Organization official said Monday as he warned that poor water sanitation was making the disease hard to contain.

The country's first cholera outbreak in 50 years emerged in northern Morobe province last July and within months had spread along the north coast to Madang and East Sepik, WHO representative Eigil Sorensen said.

"We have seen the ongoing transmission in all these three provinces at the moment so it is gradually spreading," Sorensen told AFP.

"We have now more than 2,000 confirmed cases of cholera."

Sorensen said the number of deaths so far remained modest at fewer than 50, but the disease continued to spread due to poor water supplies and as infected people, including those with no symptoms of the sickness, travelled around.

"The problem is that it's spreading to new areas and so we cannot say there has been any containment of the disease, primarily because in a large part of the country there is poor water sanitation," he said.

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Source:

The Associated Press. "2,000 hit by Papua cholera outbreak: WHO," http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hb17mDzy9C621Z2B7uv2kAUfGCkQ; 08 Feb. 2010.