Typhoid cases reduce in Neno
Neno district health officer (DHO) Lawrence Nazimera has attributed the decrease in cholera outbreak to increased awareness.
In an e-mail response on Saturday, Nazimera said his office intensified the disease surveillance at Zalewa and surrounding areas to stop it from spreading.
He said: “As of last week, my office only registered five cases from 143, the smallest number since the outbreak. As a district, we need to continue improving on availability of safe water.
“For Zalewa, we suspect poor water sources and food handling [as the cause] because water samples from rivers and wells were found to have not been infected.”
He said his office is working with the Ministry of Health, Partners in Health, World Vision International, United Nations Children Fund (Unicef) and Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust (MLW) to respond to the outbreak.
Ministry of Health spokesperson Adrian Chikumbe said in addition to Zalewa, a similar outbreak was also reported at Malosa in Zomba in July this year.
Typhoid fever is an infectious disease spread by dirty water and food, causing high blood temperature. n
