Zimbabwe : Zimbabwe cholera death toll rises to 425

Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's official cholera death toll is now 425, said Zimbabwe Health Minister David Parirenyatwa, adding that the water-borne disease could continue spreading.

"What I am afraid of is that now that the rain season has come, all faeces lying in the bushes will be washed into shallow wells and contaminate the water," Minister Parirenyatwa said, adding that the management of water and sanitation was primary to the cholera problem.

However a non-governmental doctors' group fears the disease - that government admits could continue spreading in the rainy season - may have killed close to 1 000 people since August.

"Determining the exact number of people who have died from cholera could be very difficult because of the information blackout that characterised the early days of the epidemic," Douglas Gwatidzo, chairman of Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights said on Sunday.

"But with what we have the deaths cannot be anything less than 800 and I believe we are fast approaching 1 000."

Cholera is a preventable and treatable disease that causes vomiting and acute diarrhoea, and can rapidly lead to death from dehydration. The disease spreads fastest in situations with poor sanitation or where contaminated water is used for drinking or for preparing food.

Zimbabwe has been battling a cholera outbreak over the past month, which has now spread to nine of the country's 10 provinces and spilt into neighbours South Africa and Botswana, highlighting the effects of a worsening humanitarian and economic crisis in the country.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the epidemic sweeping the southern African country is "the tip of the iceberg" of a major breakdown in health infrastructure, adding that there were very few places in Zimbabwe where people infected with cholera could seek medical attention, and the clinics that are open have far too few health workers to contain the outbreak.

Crisis-torn Zimbabwe is reeling under the effects of a 10-year economic meltdown that has left the country's once admired health system totally collapsed while doctors and nurses are grossly underpaid because the government does not have money.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has begun delivering food for Zimbabwean doctors, nurses and other health workers who have not been paid because of their country's economic collapse.

The UN children's agency UNICEF said that to combat the current outbreak, Zimbabwe's water pipes, sewers, and latrines need to be fixed, new boreholes drilled, and water treatment chemicals distributed across the country.

Some international aid groups are building latrines, distributing medicines and hygiene kits, delivering water, and repairing blocked sewers across Zimbabwe to mitigate the cholera emergency.

On Saturday, Harare City Council announced that it was offering free graves for cholera victims as residents are already under pressure from an economic crisis marked by the world's highest inflation rate of 231 million percent, severe shortages of food and basic commodities.

Meanwhile, the Limpopo Department of Health and Social Development has established three dehydration centres at the Beit Bridge border post to help treat Zimbabweans who have been diagnosed with Cholera and arrived in South Africa seeking medical help. - BuaNews-NNN