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HARARE (Reuters) – A cholera outbreak has killed 10 people in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, after drinking contaminated water, a city health official said on Sunday.
Harare City Council has struggled to supply water to some suburbs for more than a decade, forcing residents to depend on open well water and community drilling.
Clemence Duri, Harare City Health Director, said more than 300 people had been hospitalized after contracting a waterborne illness causing severe diarrhea and dehydration. The outbreak was reported for the first time on Friday.
"The death toll has gone up to 10. We have established that the outbreak was caused by a sewer line that had contaminated the well," said Duri, adding that the pipe had been replaced .
Zimbabwe experienced its largest cholera outbreak in 2008 at the height of the economic crisis: over 4,000 people died and 40,000 became ill.
(Report by MacDonald Dzirutwe, edited by Kirsten Donovan)
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