Word: cholerae
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...first there was little choice. While thousands died daily of cholera, the question of who controlled aid distributions seemed of little consequence. But as the emergency in the camps in Zaire and Tanzania abated, it became clear that Rwanda's former government was re-creating a replica of its defeated regime, from former ministers down to the tiniest cell leader of a few hundred peasants. Despite efforts by foreign overseers like Banville, each day for the past three months, aid workers have been handing over food, medicine and other supplies to these erstwhile officials...
...genocide in its purest form raged through the country. First, the Hutu-dominated government unleashed a frenzy of killing against the minority Tutsis. Then, when the Tutsis launched a rebellion and seized the country, thousands of Hutus fled in fear to border camps. There, thousands more died from cholera and dysentery. By the time the worst had ended, as many as half a million people had died...
Surat is one example of many people brought together hurriedly. Cholera arrived in South American in 1991 in the bilge water of a freighter. A more recent example of cholera attack appears in the migration of 20,000 Rwandans to Zaire two months ago. The result of a massive disruption in demography was an epidemic of cholera...
...sheer volume of disease-fighting immune cells can overload blood vessels, ripping tiny tears in the vessel linings; toxins can also damage the vessels directly. Plasma begins to leak out of the bloodstream; blood pressure drops, organs fail, and the body falls into a state of shock. In cholera, bacterial toxins attack intestinal cells, triggering diarrhea, catastrophic dehydration and death...
...nearly every disease organism known to medicine has become resistant to at least one antibiotic, and several are immune to more than one. One of the most alarming things about the cholera epidemic that has killed as many as 50,000 people in Rwandan refugee camps is that it involves a strain of bacterium that can't be treated with standard antibiotics. Relief agencies had to scramble for the right medicines, which gave the disease a head start in its lethal rampage...