Cholera resurfaces in Binga

A fresh cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe's southern Binga district in Matabeleland North has claimed the lives of four people and hospitalised 16 others. The Acting Environmental Health Officer for Matabeleland North province, Notion Gombe, said the outbreak was detected after the death of a man who had visited his relatives near the boundary between Binga and Kariba districts in Mashonaland West province. He said the new flare-up could have resulted from the cross-boundary movement of people between Binga and Kariba, where the ministry of health has been battling the illness since late December 2003. Gombe attributed the reappearance of cholera to the absence of disease surveillance mechanisms, which he said should have been put in place soon after the successful fight against the last outbreak. In November last year a rash of cases claimed 17 lives in the same area. "While we now have sufficient mechanisms to curb the further spread of the disease, there is a need to point out that this recurrence is because we did not design a surveillance programme after controlling the previous outbreak," Gombe told IRIN. He confirmed that health officials had been redeployed to the district, and the ministry had sufficient anti-cholera fluids to control the spread of the disease. The government and NGOs are expected to intensify public awareness and education programmes in the local Tonga language. Zimbabwe's Health Minister, David Parirenyatwa, and Amos Midzi, the director of disease prevention and control, could not be reached.