“Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, is now the center of a cholera epidemic after the first confirmed case surfaced in the north of the country in February,” IRIN reports, noting, “Since January, Sierra Leone has seen 4,249 cases of cholera and 76 people have died from the waterborne disease” (7/25). In related news, “[c]onflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where M23 rebels and other armed groups are fighting government forces, is dangerously undermining efforts to combat a cholera outbreak” in the country, IRIN writes in a separate article. According to the news service, “There has been ‘a sharp increase in the number of cholera cases in the armed conflict area of North Kivu’ Province, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement” (7/25).