Cholera and floods in Colombia: Commission steps in with medical aid

For people of Colombia's Pacific Coast, cholera is a major health hazard. The European Union is backing a project to provide vaccinations and safe water for them. Elsewhere in Colombia, EU funding will help meet the primary health care needs of people driven from their homes by the flooding of the Paez and Moras Rivers.

The European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) is making available one million ECU for these projects. ECHO will work with the French Red Cross on the cholera vaccination programme, which should reach about 25,000 people. The related water and sanitation programme should benefit about 20,000 people.

Medicos del Mundo, a Spanish non-governmental organisation, is ECHO's partner in providing basic health care for about 35,000 people who have had no access to facilities since they left their homes in the wake of floods triggered by a volcano eruption last year.