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Mozambique works to contain cholera outbreak after cyclone

Published:Sunday | April 2, 2023 | 12:55 PM
Clothes are hung out to dry on downed electrical power lines caused by last week's heavy rains caused by Tropical Cyclone Freddy in Phalombe, southern Malawi Saturday, March 18, 2023. Authorities are still getting to grips with destruction in Malawi and Mozambique with over 370 people confirmed dead and several hundreds still displaced or missing. (AP Photo/Thoko Chikondi)

QUELIMANE, Mozambique (AP) — Weeks after massive Cyclone Freddy hit Mozambique for a second time, the still-flooded country is facing a spiralling cholera outbreak that threatens to add to the devastation.

There were over 19,000 confirmed cases of cholera across eight of Mozambique's provinces as of March 27, according to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a figure which had almost doubled in a week.

Freddy was likely the longest-lived cyclone ever, lasting over five weeks and hitting Mozambique twice.

The tropical storm killed 165 people in Mozambique, 17 in Madagascar and 676 in Malawi. More than 530 people are still missing in Malawi two weeks later so that country's death toll could well exceed 1,200.

Freddy made its second landfall in Mozambique's Zambezia province, where scores of villages remain flooded and water supplies are still contaminated.

At a hospital in Quelimane, Zambezia's provincial capital, National Institute of Health director general Eduardo Sam Gudo Jr reported there were 600 new confirmed cases a day in Quelimane district alone, but said that the real number may be as high as 1,000.

At least 31 died of cholera in Zambezia and over 3,200 were hospitalised between March 15 and 29, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

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