With water sources drying up in Zimbabwe, access to clean water has become more important as communicable diseases like typhoid threaten many communities in Africa [Xinhua]
South Africa has on Friday issued a health warning against typhoid fever, following an outbreak of the disease in neighboring Zimbabwe.
The country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) said it hoped to raise awareness of the highly contagious disease among travelers and medical professionals.
The NICD, however, said a typhoid outbreak in South Africa is not anticipated.
Typhoid is a highly infectious human communicable disease where fever is the number one symptom from the spread of the salmonella bacteria in water and food largely due to unhygienic practice.
Officials in the Zimbabwean capital Harare have told the media that since the beginning of the rainy season around two months ago, there have been 126 confirmed cases of typhoid with more than 1,000 other suspected cases nationwide.
Harare on Friday banned the sale of street food in order to contain the disease, blamed largely on poor sanitation and erratic water supplies amid a shortage.
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies
Source