Nairobi — A medical team has been flown to East Pokot and Turkana East districts after a cholera outbreak killed 27 people.

Three military helicopters ferried the team that will beef up 14 staff who have been on the ground since Monday.

Rift Valley Provincial Commissioner Osman Warfa said the team will comb the area for bodies in the fields and bushes and bury them to avoid further contamination.

Sick residents will be taken for treatment.

Not burying

"The bodies are lying in the fields and bushes, I personally came across the body of a woman and her little daughter in a bush when I toured the area on Monday," he said.

"There could be more bodies in the bushes because after their relatives die, the Pokot relocate to another area instead of reporting the death or burying the body," he said.

Mr Warfa said the government had set up a major medical base at Kepedo.

The provincial administrator said he had mobilised district commissioners in the two districts to search for the sick people and retrieve bodies.

He said he was worried about a group of 2,000 families that had set up camp on the border of Turkana East but fled in different directions when the disease broke out.

"There was panic among the families after their colleagues started dying and they fled ... we fear that they might spread the disease further," he said.

In Eldoret, a World Vision official said the outbreak can be traced to a contaminated water source in Turkana East.

Cattle rustlers from Pokot East District who attacked Turkana East are said to have drunk contaminated water at Kakolngutuny swamp.

The cattle rustlers are said to have returned to their nomadic dwellings in Pokot, from where the disease began to spread, according to NGO officials in the area.

World Vision official Christopher Eregae said the Kakolngutuny water source, which is the only one left in the area because of drought, was the cause of many deaths.

"Since the area is inhabited by a nomadic population, it facilitated the spread of the disease faster," Mr Eregae said.

And in Nairobi, Water minister Charity Ngilu washed her hands of the epidemic that has killed 194 since January.

Speaking in Parliament in response to a question by nominated MP Mohammed Affey (ODM-K), the minister said her ministry was blameless.

She said that though the disease was spread by dirty or contaminated water, there were "other factors" that should be looked at.

"Unhygienic conditions cannot be blamed on water, it has to do with public awareness on public health," she said.

Ms Ngilu was confronted by four nominated MPs, Mr Affey, Shakira Abdallah (ODM-K), Mohammed Sheikh Dor (ODM) and Rachel Shebesh (ODM), over the water scarcity in some parts of the country.

Stay clean

The MPs said lack of clean water that made it difficult for people, especially those in arid areas like Turkana and Mandera, to stay clean.

Gichugu MP Martha Karua (Narc-Kenya) joined the fray and sought an assurance from Ms Ngilu that "those licensed to supply water to the public, did supply clean water."

Ms Abdalla eventually sought to have the matter addressed by Prime Minister Raila Odinga as it now "required government coordination."Ms Ngilu said the government was providing clean water and distributing treatment tablets.