TUESDAY, 1:00PM:
The Mozambique government declared a public health emergency late on Monday in the face of a cholera epidemic that has claimed 120 lives, mostly in Maputo, over the past two months.
An international health team organised by Medecins Sans Frontieres arrived on Monday with an emergency airlift of medicines and equipment to fight the epidemic and try to confine it to the capital, but it may be too late for that. Forty-seven cases have already been reported in the provincial capital of Xai Xai.
The lack of clean drinking water and basic public sanitation in the large squatter settlements surrounding Maputo have contributed to the spread of the disease, and the onset of the rainy season has exacerbated the situation.