HARARE - Zimbabwe has started vaccinating
people living in urban areas to contain the worst cholera
outbreak to hit the country in a decade which has left 49 people
dead and infected thousands more.
The southern African nation of more than 13 million people
last month appealed locally for help to raise $35 million to buy
vaccines and medicines and to repair water and sewer pipes.
Some 1.4 million will be vaccinated, starting with those in
the most densely populated areas.
The outbreak of the water borne disease has exposed the lack
of maintenance of the country's infrastructure.
Zimbabwe's worst cholera outbreak occurred in 2008 during
the height of the economic crisis, leaving more than 4,000 dead
and infecting another 40,000.
During the current outbreak, more than 10,000 people have
been infected by cholera but there were no new deaths reported
in the past week, which the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday
was a sign that the disease was being brought under control.
Vaccinations were initially being given in urban areas where
outbreaks have occurred or where there is a high risk of an
outbreak, the government said.
In the Glenview suburb of Harare, the epicentre of the
current outbreak, health officials were administering doses of
the vaccine to school children and adults at clinics. There are
about 1.5 million people living in the city which draws water
from one lake.
"They should also go to the rural areas giving these doses,
not only here, so that this disease does not affect the whole
country," Susan Mpofu told Reuters TV after receiving her
cholera vaccine together with her daughter.
World Health Organisation regional director for Africa
Matshidiso Moeti said in a statement the vaccine, "along with
other efforts will help keep the current outbreak in check and
may prevent it from spreading further into the country and
becoming more difficult to control."