NAIROBI - About 19.9 million people in Eastern Africa require humanitarian aid as food security situation in the countries affected are not expected to improve, the UN humanitarian agency said in its latest report received on Wednesday.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said an estimated 31.6 million people are already food insecure in Southern Africa.
"While the meagre April/May 2016 harvest will temporarily improve food access in parts of the region over the short term, food security is likely to begin deteriorating by July, reaching its peak between December 2016 and April 2017," OCHA said in its Regional Flood Update report.
Throughout the region, heavy rains that intensified in late April have resulted in excessive flooding, affecting more than half a million people; damaging infrastructure and livelihoods and caused over 370 deaths.
"Although the rains have also brought relief to some areas that have been affected by the worst drought in decades, namely; parts of Ethiopia, Puntland, Somaliland and a number of countries in southern Africa, the food security situation in these areas is not expected to significantly improve, due to the scale and intensity of the El Nino-induced drought that has already depleted coping mechanisms," it said.
According to the UN, the rains have exacerbated the risk of communicable diseases in the region.
"As of May 25, several countries in the region had reported over 47,000 suspected cases of cholera and more than 970 cholera-related deaths; 1,935 confirmed and 1,400 suspected cases of measles; and more than, 2,480 cases of yellow fever and over 300 yellow-fever related deaths," it said.(Xinhua)