26 March 2014 - As the rainy season approaches in South Sudan, a UN health official warned today in Juba that there was a high risk of waterborne disease outbreaks in displaced persons camps.

Waterborne diseases were communicable diseases contracted due to drinking and eating contaminated water and food, World Health Organization Medical Officer Dr. Abdunnasir Abubakar told UN Radio Miraya.

“Some of these waterborne diseases, including cholera, typhoid, hepatitis E and watery diarrhoea … can be transmitted to other persons through contamination,” he said. “For example, if you drink water or food contaminated with faeces … you will have the risk of contracting any type of waterborne disease.”

Germs causing the diseases thrived in water unless it was boiled or purified with chloride, and in food unless it was washed properly, he said. The disease would spread when people drank unclean water or came into contact with contaminated food and then touched their faces.

“The … most important thing … is simply washing your hands before and after you use the toilet, before and after you eat food,” the WHO doctor said. “Our hands are the most common means of transmitting diseases from one person to the other.”

He also emphasized the importance of using toilets rather than defecating outside in the open. “The rainy season will come and contaminate the water and then everyone will be contaminated.”

Conflict broke out in South Sudan on 15 December 2013 between government and opposition forces in Juba and rapidly spread to several other states. UNMISS is currently sheltering about 68,000 displaced civilians on eight bases across the country.