Fourteen children have died from food poisoning in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, in recent weeks, an official newspaper reported on Saturday, a day after reports of an outbreak of dysentery in Harare and its satellite town of Chitungwiza.
The children, all under the age of five, are suspected to have contracted a virulent form of food poisoning — salmonella — from chicken or eggs sold in unhygienic food stalls that are common in poorer quarters of Harare.
”We saw that there was an outbreak of this disease in children from areas such as Mbare, Highfield, Mabvuku, Waterfalls and Mufakose [low-income Harare suburbs],” Harare Central hospital medical superintendent Chris Tapfumaneyi told the Herald.
He said patients brought to the hospital had initially been treated for typhoid. Laboratory tests later revealed an outbreak of salmonella.
”What is alarming is that it seems the disease keeps attacking more under-five children, and at the moment we have a number of cases we are dealing with and seem to be able to control,” said Tapfumaneyi.
On Friday, reports here said more than 200 people in Harare and Chitungwiza had been hospitalised for dysentery. The highly infectious diarrhoeal disease was blamed on unhygienic water supplies.
Many suburbs in Harare and Chitungwiza are experiencing erratic water supplies. Some suburbs go without running water for several weeks, resulting in people drawing water from unprotected wells and streams. — Sapa-DPA