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At least 18 people died last week in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, and dozens of people became ill as a result of a cholera and typhoid epidemic in some areas, authorities said on Monday.
Such outbreaks are frequent because local authorities are struggling to provide drinking water and sanitation facilities in the city, where shanty towns without running water have multiplied and infrastructure is in the process of becoming established. collapse due to many years of neglect.
Some suburbs spend weeks without water forcing people to fetch water from dangerous sources.
"This morning we had 18 dead," Clemence Duri, acting director of the city of Harare, told AFP.
He said at least 400 people from Mbare communes, Budiriro and Glen View, in the south-west of the country, had been admitted to health facilities after suffering from one of two diseases.
Tests on water samples from some wells and boreholes showed that the water was contaminated with cholera and typhoid bacteria.
"We have since disarmed the boreholes and closed the wells," he said.
Zimbabwe, led by Robert Mugabe since his independence until he was ousted last year, experienced his worst cholera outbreak in 2008. A total of 4,000 people died and at least 100,000 people died. ill.
Emmerson Mnangagwa, who succeeded Mugabe, is committed to making Zimbabwe a middle-income country by 2030.
A cholera outbreak in 2008 killed some 4,000 people
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