Up to 3,160 people have now contracted cholera and 73 people have died across the country and health minister Camilo Simoes Lopes told IRIN the authorities are struggling to win the fight again the epidemic.

The majority of the victims are in the capital, Bissau, which has recorded 2,301 cases. "The situation is bad across the country,” Lopes said, “Only the Bijagos islands have been spared.”

The government and international organisations are focusing their efforts on Bissau though health teams are also travelling to more remote parts of the country to try to contain the disease’s spread.

The government has called on the international community to provide more drugs to treat the disease, according to Lopes. So far the United Nations has leveraged US$600,000 in emergency funds to fight the epidemic.

Agostinho Semedo, the director of the Simao Mendes hospital told IRIN, “We need money and logistical help to fight the disease – we don’t have enough beds or medicines at the moment to do it.”

The hospital is struggling to cope with the number of victims it receives each day. “The situation is beyond our control. People must respect the laws that have been laid down, and the government must do more… to control the situation."

The authorities have prohibited the sale of street food such as doughnuts, some sweets and sachets of water in a bid to stop the disease from spreading further. Semedo has also called on people to stop sacrificing animals at funerals, which he says may be a root cause.

Patients at the hospital have to lie on the ground because there are not enough beds to put them in. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) plans to set up tents to shelter the sick but these have not yet been erected.

Lionardo Domingos Nancassa is one of 23 volunteers helping the government disinfect wells across the capital with chlorine.

According to Lopes others like him need to get more actively involved to prevent the disease from spreading further. "We have found people are not cooperating enough to abide by the hygiene measures imposed by health authorities," he said.

For Nancassa his mission is clear, “We have to come together to contribute to the fight against the epidemic that is wreaking havoc in our capital.”

IRIN