The main impact of Zimbabwe’s cholera epidemic has shifted from urban areas to rural areas, making its containment much harder, a medical charity says.
Medecins Sans Frontieres told the BBC that the disease was spreading to remote areas, while cases in some urban areas, like Harare, were decreasing.
The UN says at least 2,755 people have now died – a 20% rise in a week.
The rainy season could lead to even more infections, as water sources become contaminated, aid workers warn.
MSF Zimbabwe representative Manuel Lopez said that small villages off the main roads were now being affected following the Christmas holidays, when urban residents went home.
Funerals of cholera victims had also seen the infection spread out of the cities.
“Traditionally in Zimbabwe whenever someone dies they usually bring the body to the village of origin for funeral and burial and many times, unfortunately, bodies are not disinfected,” he told the BBC News website.
“Everybody touches the body and everybody cries on the body and they get infected as well.”
He added that the lack of awareness and the difficulty of getting to clinics meant that those dying of such an easily treatable disease was growing.
SOURCED FROM BBC
Filed under: AFRICAN HEALTH, AFRICAN NEWS, ZIMBABWE Tagged: | AFRICAN HEALTH, CHOLERA OUTBREAK IN ZIMBABWE, ROBERT MUGABE, ZIMBABWE
