Health officials in northern Zimbabwe said Sunday a prolonged outbreak of cholera in the area had killed 20 people and affected more than 200 others.
They said Shamva district in the north had been hit by a cholera outbreak since February, which had claimed 20 lives and left 221 others sick. District medical officer Tendai Kamuriwo said it was suspected the disease broke out after villagers used contaminated water from streams and mishandling of victims’ bodies. “We are not sure how the first cholera victim contracted it, but we suspect it could have been from the river where the community gets its water,” he said. “Most of the people who died are males who had attended funerals of the early victims. We suspect they had contact with the corpses of the early victims of cholera resulting in them contracting the disease,” he added. As part of measures to control the spread of disease, health officials said they had banned food at funerals, and enforced strict sanitary standards in the area. Panapress.
