Share & more
WHO officials are due in South Africa this week to help the government deal
with a cholera outbreak which has killed 53 people so far. The visit comes
as local doctors diagnosed a cholera victim in Mpumalanga province - the
first case reported outside the coastal province of KwaZulu Natal, where
more than 12,000 infections have been reported since the outbreak began
about four months ago.
The head of WHO in South Africa, Welile Shasha, told IRIN on Thursday that
two epidemiologists expected by the end of the week would consult government
health officials and then head off to KwaZulu Natal to try to determine why
the epidemic has not yet been stemmed. "They will be here to design a
programme to deal with the outbreak and also to look at ways of preventing
future outbreaks," he told IRIN.
Meanwhile, South African health authorities said they are already
distributing domestic bleach for water purification in Mpumalanga after a
23-year-old villager was diagnosed with the disease in Elandshoek, about 250
km east of Johannesburg. Another two people are being treated for severe
diarrhoea in the same area.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
