Cholera Outbreak In Niassa
Maputo, 9 Jan (AIM) – Eight people have died so far in a cholera outbreak in Lago district in the northern Mozambican province of Niassa, according to a report on the independent television station, STV.
According to the Niassa provincial director of health, Ramos Mboane, the first cases in this outbreak were diagnosed in Lago, which borders on Malawi, where there have been more than 18,000 cases of cholera in recent months.
Mboane said 379 cases were diagnosed in Lago since December, of whom six have died. The other two deaths occurred in the Niassa provincial capital, Lichinga, where 220 cases have been diagnosed.
It is feared that the disease will spread to the districts of Sanga and Mecanhelas. Mboane said that samples have been taken from suspect cases and sent to the National Health Institute (INS), to confirm whether cholera is already present in these two districts or not.
The provincial health authorities suspect that the Niassa cases were imported from Malawi. “We have to report an epidemiological link with the outbreak in Malawi”, said Mboane. “The Lago outbreak occurred less than ten kilometres from the border with Malawi”.
The authorities in the other two provinces that border Malawi, Tete and Zambezia, are on maximum alert. “No cases of cholera have yet been confirmed, but if any do occur, we are ready to intervene. We have provincial and district teams working on the matter”, said Helder Dombole, the Tete provincial head of public health.
In Zambezia, there are cases of diarrhoea, but none have yet been confirmed as cholera. “Surveillance teams are working in the districts that border on Malawi. We are disinfecting hands with soap and water to prevent the disease spreading to our province”, said Anibal Fernando, of the Zambezia Provincial Health Directorate.
(AIM)
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