A cholera outbreak has killed at least seven people in south-eastern Zimbabwe in the past week, the health ministry reported on Tuesday.
A further 114 cases have been treated in the Chikomba district, 150km south-east of the capital, Harare.
Cholera is a gastrointestinal disease that is spread by drinking contaminated water and can cause severe diarrhoea. Health authorities blamed torrential seasonal rains that have swept contaminated water from sewers and drains into drinking sources.
More outbreaks are possible, they warned.
Rainfall since November has been above average in most areas, causing minor flooding in some districts, the state meteorological office said.
Harare has also suffered hundreds of dysentery cases this rainy season, brought on by collapsing sanitation services and mounting heaps of garbage.
Public services have crumbled amid the worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980, blamed on years of erratic rains and the seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to black Zimbabweans. — Sapa-AP