Zimbabwe : Cholera fears in typhoid-hit Harare

Via Zim Online :

" City health officials and independent doctors have warned of a possible cholera outbreak in Harare, already grappling with a typhoid outbreak that has infected more than 800 people over the past two weeks.

The independent Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said the absence of clean drinking water, collapsed sewer systems and poor standards of hygiene in most Harare’s overcrowded working class suburbs provided a fertile ground for both cholera and typhoid.

The association also criticised what it called lack of urgency by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe’s coalition government in responding to the typhoid outbreak.

Harare City health director Prosper Chonzi, who has blamed the typhoid outbreak on contaminated food sold in the open in the city’s low-income suburbs, was quoted by official media as saying conditions in the city were conducive for an “outbreak of cholera anytime”."

Zimbabwe : Cholera outbreak at Zim diamond field

An article published at Zim Online :

" HARARE : Zimbabwean health officials have been placed on high alert amid reports that at least 19 people have died from a fresh cholera outbreak whose epicentre is at the controversial Chiadzwa or Marange diamond field.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) this week said that the latest outbreak has so far affected 18 of the country’s 62 districts compared to 54 districts at the same time in 2009.

“Cumulative cholera cases stood at 753 with 669 suspected and 86 laboratory confirmed cases, while 19 deaths had been reported by 29 August 2010,” the UN agency said.

The hardest hit areas are Beitbridge, Bindura, Buhera, Chegutu, Chivi, Chimanimani, Chipinge, Chiredzi, Harare, Hurungwe, Kadoma, Masvingo, Makonde, Mount Darwin, Mutare, Mwenezi, Nyanga, Plumtree and Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe.

More than 70 percent of the cases currently reported are from rural areas."