I'm standing outside a typical village church. But today its mud walls and thatched roof are offering a different kind of sanctuary - it's being used as a makeshift centre to treat suspected cholera patients from the surrounding area.

 

Inside, three women lie on mats on the dirt floor. They're hooked up to IV drips and seem to be making a good recovery, but I'm told that a young boy died here last night. His body went into convulsions because he didn't have enough fluids in his system. There was nothing the local nurse could do.

 

To me it seems a great tragedy, a little boy killed by a disease that we know both how to prevent and how to cure. But I can tell from the faces around me that this boy isn't the first and certainly won't be the last casualty in a country still struggling to rebuild its health service after years of civil war.

 

I'm in a small village called Peth, about an hour and a half's drive from Aweil town in Northern Bahr El-Ghazal, Southern Sudan. The population is growing rapidly as people return home after the peace agreement of 2005. But there's still no health centre here, so the local nurse is reliant on emergency supplies and support from the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

 

Thankfully, the number of cases appears to be manageable - about 30 over the weekend - and there are far fewer patients today than yesterday. The problem is that cholera spreads via water and this village sits right on the River Lol, which is taking the disease towards other villages and towns where awareness about even the most rudimentary of hygiene practices is low.

 

I feel that what I'm seeing here in Peth is indicative of a larger problem. As more and more people return to Southern Sudan, the most essential of basic services just aren't there to cope, despite the young government's best efforts. Over the course of a week, I've visited villages where a handful of boreholes serve hundreds of people, and other places where there isn't a single latrine.

 

It's often hard to explain to Westerners - or others used to running water and flushing toilets - quite how bad this makes things. Sanitation isn't the most sexy of topics, I know, but it really is a serious problem. If people have to use the bush, when the rains come everything is washed into rivers and uncovered wells, where the same people will collect their drinking water. The health problems this causes are obvious.

 

Back in Aweil town, I find out that the civilian hospital has seen more than 90 cases of cholera and witnessed at least two deaths. I'm amazed/appalled to hear that cholera can severely dehydrate and kill an adult in only four hours. Four hours! But I'm reassured to hear that there are simple steps communities can take to prevent it.

 

For example, in the east of Aweil, I meet volunteers who are busy chlorinating water from a local borehole. Women and children fill their jerry cans and then queue up to let the volunteers put a few drops of chlorine inside. It's amazingly quick, simple and cheap. Just 3ml can treat a 20-litre jerry can and give a family water that's cholera-free. When you consider the alternative, you can't put a price on it.

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