WHO: Risk of Disease Still High in Indonesia's Aceh

Tsunami-stricken Indonesia has escaped major disease outbreaks so far but hundreds of thousands of people are at high risk due to poor conditions in refugee camps, the World Health Organization said Monday.

Health officials have feared epidemics since the Dec. 26 disaster that may have killed 230,000 people in Aceh province and left hundreds of thousands homeless, forcing them to live in makeshift outdoor camps with poor sanitation.

"It's too soon to declare any sort of victory, there's still plenty of threat and we have to be careful because the situation is still precarious," said Bob Dietz, the WHO spokesman in Aceh.

United Nations officials credited a swift response to the tsunami disaster with preventing epidemics that some feared could cause a second wave of death after the tsunami, in which nearly 300,000 people died or disappeared around the Indian Ocean region.

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