The death toll from Zimbabwe’s tenacious cholera epidemic rose by 24 to 2,225 from a total of 42,675 cases, the World Health Organization said Friday in a statistical update.
Notes to the report compiled through Thursday hinted at the difficulties facing authorities trying to bring the persistent epidemic to a halt. Cholera treatment centers are having trouble ensuring supplies of clean water, as in Makonde and Zvimba, Mashonaland West province.
GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says the death toll from Zimbabwe’s cholera outbreak has risen to 2,106.
The World Health Organization says more than 40,448 people have been infected by the disease since the outbreak began in August.
The figures released Wednesday by WHO show that the fatality rate for the newly added cases stands at 12.6 percent. The average fatality rate from cholera in Zimbabwe is at 5.2 percent. Both are far above the 1 percent considered normal in large-scale outbreaks.
President Robert Mugabe said today that “there is no cholera” in Zimbabwe any more because the country’s doctors had cured the outbreak.
His statement is in stark contradiction of the daily updates on the state of Zimbabwe’s cholera epidemic from the World Health Organisation, which said today that at least 783 had died of the disease and 16,403 had been infected as of yesterday.
GENEVA : Cholera has killed 412 people in Zimbabwe to date and the disease is also spreading into neighbouring Botswana and South Africa, the United Nations warned Friday.
A total of 9,908 cases have been recorded in the impoverished southern African country, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, raising an earlier toll of 389 dead out of 9,463 affected.
The World Health Organization said Friday that 294 people had died in a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, fostered by the country’s collapsing health care system. Fadela Chaib, an organization spokeswoman, said 6,072 cases of cholera had been reported since August, with a surge in the past two weeks.
