A CHOLERA epidemic in eight of Mozambique’s 11 provinces had infected 11 527 people and killed 159, health officials said. The epidemic began in August in the central Zambezia province, where more than half the deaths had been recorded, Avertino Barreto, the deputy national director of health, told state radio on Wednesday. In the town of Tete in the northwest of the country, between 15 and 20 new cholera patients were reporting for treatment daily, said Fredrico Brito, chief doctor of the Tete province. The high incidence of the waterborne disease has been blamed on recent heavy rains, which have caused wells and rivers to become contaminated. Most people in this poor southern African nation of 18-million people do not have access to piped water. The health ministry has placed advertisements on national radio urging people to boil their drinking water and wash their hands before cooking. More than 1 000 people died in a cholera epidemic in Mozambique two year ago. – Sapa