Cholera Plagues Zimbabwe

Posted on May 27, 2009

time.com

Cholera thrives in Zimbabwe, where clean water and health infrastructure are all but nonexistent.

Cholera, the scourge of centuries past, has infected 100,000 people in Zimbabwe, dwarfing the body count of the much better publicized swine flu and demonstrating once again the dramatic and tragic inequality of health care in many parts of the developing world.

Al-Jazeera English

Cholera is expected to infect its 100,000th victim in Zimbabwe this week in the worst outbreak of the disease in Africa for 15 years, the Red Cross has said.

Although the disease, which has claimed 4,276 lives, is slowing, it remains a serious threat, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Tuesday.

“We stand now within days of 100,000 cases,” Matthew Cochrane, an IFRC spokesman, said, a figure that was “unimaginable” just a few months ago.

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