A cholera outbreak in a remote southern Philippine town killed at least 18 people in the past two days, a local official said Wednesday, dpa reported.
Fifty people have also fallen ill due to the disease that struck residents in a village in Palimbang town in Sultan Kudarat province, 1,005 kilometres south of Manila, according to town Mayor Samrud Mamansual.
Mamansual said health officials suspect that dirty drinking water and poor sanitation were the cause of the cholera outbreak in the village of Milbuk.
"We have dispatched our health workers to look into the plight of the victims," he said. "Additional medicines will be transported to the area to prevent the spread of the disease."
Mamansual said most of the victims were children from the Manobo tribe, a local indigenous community in the area.
Three months ago, eight people were killed and 60 others fell ill due to cholera in the neighbouring village of Ligaw.