Cholera outbreak leaves 79 in hospital, new cases continue to be reported

New cases of cholera continue to be reported in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, where until Friday 79 patients were admitted to various health centres in the city, a spokesman said on Monday. "We are getting new cases almost everyday despite the ongoing mass education campaigns on how to contain the disease," Gaston Makwembe, an information officer for the Dar es Salaam City Council, said. He blamed the shortage of water in the city for the disease's persistence, which has seen periodic outbreaks there and in other parts of the country because of public consumption of unsafe drinking water from wells and other sources. "In our campaigns we insist that people should boil water for drinking from whatever source they get it," he said. He said 582 cholera patients were reported at various health centres in the city since 2 December 2005, six of whom died. Cholera, an acute diarrhoeal disease, is caused by infection of the intestine with the bacterium "vibrio cholerae". The infection is often characterised by profuse watery diarrhoea and vomiting. Patients suffer from rapid loss of body fluids leading to dehydration and shock. Without treatment, usually with fluid infusion, death can occur within hours.