Cholera kills 59 in SA

Fifty-nine people in South Africa have died since the cholera outbreak spread from neighbouring Zimbabwe in November, Health Minister Barbara Hogan has said.

Briefing the media in Pretoria, Hogan said the disease had claimed 59 lives from November up until March 7. "One dead is too much and we had had 59," she said.

She said 12 324 cases had been reported. However, she said there had been a steady decline and cholera was mostly confined to Mpumalanga and Limpopo.

"It is present but is going down. We believe that the cholera situation is very under control, but it does not mean we are not monitoring," she said.

Hogan was unable to verify if the 59 people who had died of cholera were all South Africans. She said she did not have statistics, however, "all people are human beings". – (Sapa, March 2009)

Read more:
Cholera timeline
Zim ripe for new epidemics