Cholera present in nine Southern African countries

People in nine countries in Southern Africa currently have outbreaks of cholera, it has been revealed.

Residents of countries including Zimbabwe, Angola and Zambia are all at risk of catching the disease, with thousands of cases being reported in the last few months.

Zimbabwe in particular is suffering from the disease at the moment, with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare's surveillance department informing the World Health Organisation that there were 3,975 deaths from cholera as of March 5th.

Bob McCarthy, UNICEF regional emergency officer for Eastern and Southern Africa, said: "You have a combination of some transmission occurring along the border areas from Zimbabwe, but we also have a situation where cholera has emerged…in areas independent of what we're seeing in Zimbabwe.

"Most of the countries are still in a situation where an unacceptably high number of deaths are occurring."

The other countries involved are Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland.

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