Bacteria in contaminated water has killed five people rescued from Hurricane Katrina, officials said yesterday, adding a worrying new dimension to the disaster. Experts made a new warning not to even touch the floodwaters in New Orleans.
Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the five died this week from vibrio vulnificus, a rarely active bacteria that is part of the cholera family.
He said one case was reported in Texas and the others in Mississippi.
The spokesman said more deaths from the disease were likely: "There will be some more deaths associated with vibrio vulnificus in the affected areas, particularly New Orleans," he said.
Vibrio vulnificus can enter the body through a cut, scratch or wound that comes in contact with contaminated water, often salt water. The elderly or those with a weak immune system are most at risk.
Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhoea, cramps, nausea, headache and fever. If the bacteria infects the bloodstream, the mortality rate is 50 per cent, according to the CDC, but it is not contagious.
Doctors have been warning that the Gulf Coast, where thousands were feared killed by Katrina, could become a haven for cholera, malaria, typhoid, West Nile virus and other ailments.
Meanwhile officials said tests showed New Orleans floodwaters contain unsafe levels of E. coli and coliform bacteria, as well as lead, and contact with the water should be avoided, Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson urged yesterday.
To the estimated 10,000 residents still holed up in this ruined city, the mayor had a blunt new warning: Get out now or risk being taken out by force.
As floodwaters began to slowly recede with the first of the city's pumps returning to operation, Mayor C Ray Nagin authorized law enforcement officers and the US military to evacuate all holdouts for their own safety. He warned that the fetid water could spread disease and that natural gas was leaking all over town.
US President George W Bush will ask Congress for another $51.8 billion (BD19.5bn) in emergency funding to cover costs tied to Hurricane Katrina, the White House said.
l Sheryl Crow, the Dixie Chicks, Randy Newman, Neil Young, Rod Stewart, Alicia Keys and Paul Simon will perform during tomorrow's Hurricane Katrina benefit organised by the major broadcasters.
"Shelter From the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast,'' a live, hourlong telecast, will be carried commercial-free by more than two dozen other cable outlets.
Hillary rejects Katrina probe under Bush
Senator Hillary Clinton fuelled the political debate in the United States over Hurricane Katrina on Wednesday, insisting on an independent inquiry into the federal response and sharply rejecting President George Bush’s bid to lead the probe himself.
“I don’t think the government should be investigating itself,” Clinton told CNN as the polemics intensified over last week’s storm, which left New Orleans in chaos and thousands feared dead on the US Gulf Coast.
“I don’t think either the president or the Congress can conduct the kind of objective, independent investigation that we need,” the New York Democrat and former first lady said on CBS television.
Clinton, considered a potential White House candidate for 2008, has taken a prominent role in criticizing the Bush administration for the sluggish early efforts to dispatch troops and relief supplies to hurricane-hit areas.
She wrote Bush a critical letter over the weekend and visited evacuees in the Houston, Texas, Astrodome stadium. She held a major news conference on Tuesday before making the rounds of television stations.
Senate Republicans have announced investigations into the government’s handling of Katrina. Bush, who has acknowledged shortcomings, promised on Tuesday to lead an inquiry into ‘what went wrong’.
But Hillary Clinton is pushing for the creation of an independent ‘Katrina commission’ along the lines of the panel reluctantly named by Bush that issued a voluminous report on the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.
“I think we sort of have lost track of the fact this is a government that has to be accountable to the people of our country,” Clinton told CNN.
“This is not a game. This has to be a serious inquiry that people have confidence in, that will help us understand what did go wrong. The sooner we know that, the better.”
PHOTO CAPTION
U.S. President George Bush smiles during a town hall-style meeting at a retirement community in El Mirage, Arizona August 29, 2005. (REUTERS)