Cholera alert after Zim outbreak

● The health departments of Mpumalanga and Limpopo are on high alert after a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe has killed 28 people and left nearly 4,000 hospitalised in the past 11 days.

International aid agencies are helping with medicine, volunteer services and clean water for the affected communities.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases said there was no reason to panic. The institute’s Lucille Blumberg said most of SA’s water supply systems were good.

“Dealing with cholera is about good hygiene. This is a disease which is perfectly treatable,” she said.

Blumberg said cholera was not transferable through casual contact and that it spread, for the most part, through drinking contaminated water.

She said border officials were on alert and hospitals were prepared.

Mandla Zwane, director for communicable disease control in Mpumalanga, said given the high volume of movement of people between Zimbabwe and SA, the province’s health officials had been placed on high alert with their outbreak response teams on standby.

“We have reporting systems in place to alert us to any increases of diarrhoea cases. Our health-care facilities provide us daily feedback on whether they are receiving patients with diarrhoea. The systems allow us to detect if there is a sudden increase in such cases and respond as needed.”