5 cholera deaths in Musina

2008-11-29 21:18

Johannesburg - Five people from Zimbabwe have died from cholera in Musina over the last two weeks, the Limpopo health department said on Saturday.

Spokesperson Phuti Seloba said 340 people had been officially diagnosed with the disease since November 15, with 69 of them in hospital in a stable condition.

Seloba said reports that South Africans with no ties to Zimbabwe were now also contracting the disease, had "no relationship to the truth and no potential to be the truth".

Earlier this week, water sources around Musina and Beit Bridge in Limpopo were testing negative for cholera.

He said South African health officials' relationship with their Zimbabwe counterparts was "warm" as they dealt with the disease outbreak as a "common problem".

Rehydration centres at Musina and Madimbo clinics are fully operational.

He said more people from Zimbabwe were expected to cross the border.

"With the situation [the way it is], its natural that the only option is to say we are expecting more people"

Asked by Sapa whether clinics and hospitals in the area were coping with the influx of people, Seloba said: "It's just more about our passion and commitment. We can't say we are coping. Commitment is a powerful driving force. We are surviving on the basis of that."

On Friday, two suspected cholera patients in Durban were discharged after tests revealed they had not contracted the water-borne disease.

SA Health Minister Barbara Hogan said in a statement this week that two truck drivers, one Zambian and the other Mozambican, who were being treated in Johannesburg and Durban respectively died from the illness.

Hogan said that apart from Limpopo, other affected provinces in South Africa were Gauteng, with nine cholera cases and six suspected cases, KwaZulu-Natal with one confirmed case, Mpumalanga with one suspected case and Western Cape with one suspected case.

On Friday, the United Nations said cholera had killed 412 people in Zimbabwe to date.

A total of 9 908 cases had been reported in the country, reported Agence France Press.

- SAPA