Aid Agencies Say Cholera ‘Is Out of Control’

Johannesburg — The alarm was first raised about a fresh cholera outbreak in Chegutu, about 100km southwest of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, on 10 December. Help did not arrive until three days later.”When we got to the site it was horrific – 50 people had died within two days, there were only two nurses, and there were dead bodies everywhere,” said an exasperated Georges Tadonki, head of the UN Office for the Coordination Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Zimbabwe. Custodia Mandhlate, representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and chair of the Zimbabwe Health Cluster responding to the cholera epidemic, said her team was struggling with failing communciation networks, and the incapacity of government agencies to stem an outbreak that was “out of control” and has claimed more than 1,000 lives.