More cholera deaths in Malawi
2009-01-06 16:00
Blantyre - The death toll in Malawi's cholera outbreak has hit 13, more than doubling from last month, while 370 cases have been recorded, health officials said on Tuesday.
"As of Sunday evening, 13 people have died from the disease and we have recorded an accumulative number of 370 cases," Storn Kabuluzi, a director in the health ministry, said.
In December, the number of cases was at 88.
The outbreak is not linked to the devastating epidemic in Zimbabwe which has so far claimed more than 1 700 lives, he added.
Exacerbated by poor sanitation, the outbreak has spread through two of the capital's densely-populated shantytowns not served by running water.
"The general hygiene is at stake in these two places... there is no running water with garbage thrown all over the tonwships," Kabuluzi said.
The ministry has set up two tented camps to treat patients and provided chlorine to hundreds of residents to treat water, he said.
The poor southern African country suffered its worst cholera outbreak in 2001 when up to 1 000 people died of the water-borne disease.
About 35% of Malawi's 13 million citizens have no access to clean drinking water while 81.4% of households use pit latrines, official figures indicate.
- AFP