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DAKAR, Senegal (AP) - A cholera epidemic spreading across West Africa has sickened tens of thousands of people this year and killed nearly 500 amid a long-term deterioration in health services in one of the world's poorest regions, the United Nations said Thursday.
Cholera has stricken 31,259 people in nine west African countries since June and 488 are reported dead in what the United Nations said was an "unusually high incidence" of the disease. Year-ago figures weren't provided.
"We have a crisis that needs immediate attention," said Herve Ludovic de Lys, head of the U.N.'s humanitarian-affairs coordination efforts in the region. "This crisis needs a rapid response."
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