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Zimbabwe at high risk of cholera outbreak: official

Xinhua, March 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

Zimbabwe is at high risk of a cholera outbreak following several cases that have been reported in the country recently, a cabinet minister said Monday.

Zimbabwe was hit by a deadly cholera outbreak in 2008 which killed more than 4,000 people.

Health and Child Care Minister David Parirenyatwa was quoted by state-run news agency New Ziana saying that at least 15 cases of the water-borne disease had been reported in the country over the past few days.

Six were reported in Mudzi District on the eastern border with Mozambique, another six in Beitbridge, two in Chiredzi and one in Chipinge, he said.

He said all the cases were treated and discharged while three suspected cases were currently being monitored in Birchenough Bridge in the southeastern part of the country. No deaths had so far been recorded, he said.

The minister blamed poor infrastructure and sanitation for the resurgence of the disease.

He said Zimbabwe had joined the Africhol consortium within the continent that helps countries to monitor cholera and the initiative had revealed that the outbreak had hit Malawi and Mozambique, which had so far recorded 31 deaths and 2,903 cases of cholera.

Parirenyatwa said good hygiene, safe water supply and good sanitation were required to contain the outbreak, adding the country remained at risk of the disease due to poor water and sanitation.

"In some parts of the country we have found out that the sanitation coverage especially in Chiredzi is as low as 8 percent. This means that out of 100 households only eight have got toilets.

"As long as we have poor sanitation, poor water reticulation system and people cannot get water, the danger of cholera in this country is very high," he said.

The minister said government, however, was on high alert to contain the outbreak adding that adequate quantities of antibiotics were already stocked while a national task force would be put in place in all cities and provinces as measures to contain the outbreak.

Zimbabwe would also collaborate with other countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region to stamp out the cholera outbreak, the minister said, adding he would next week meet with his Mozambican counterpart to map a way forward on containing the disease. Endi