Cholera outbreak claims 15 lives in northern Mozambique

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Cholera outbreak claims 15 lives in northern Mozambique

4:34 CAT | 20 May 2020

File photo: Noticias

A total of 15 people have so far died this year from an outbreak of cholera in Cabo Delgado province, northern Mozambique, the provincial health director told Lusa on Monday.

“We have a total of 15 dead, but have not registered any more cases in the last three months,” provincial director of Public Health in Cabo Delgado Anastácia Lidimba said.

Cabo Delgado province has recorded a total of 893 cases of cholera so far this year, mainly in regions that were affected by bad weather during the 2019-2020 rainy season.

In February, the Mozambican government announced that the outbreak was “almost under control”, having opened three isolation and treatment centres as part of strategies put in place to halt the spread of the disease in the province.

Provincial health services are also conducting awareness campaigns, and cleaning and distributing water purifiers to help reduce the scope of the outbreak.

The bad weather in the province affected more than 10,000 people, in addition to destroying infrastructure such as the bridge over the Montepuez river, whose collapse interrupted one of the main roads in the province, leaving some northern districts isolated for several weeks.

Mozambique is affected by cyclonic winds from the Indian Ocean between the months of October and April every year, frequently occasioning floods in the hydrographic basins of Southern Africa.

The 2019-2020 rainy season killed 54 people, mainly from lightning and flooding, and affected around 65,000 people, many of whose homes were flooded, according to Mozambique’s National Institute for Disaster Management.

Source: Noticias