According to Council the reason for the outbreak last year was due to its failure to constantly supply clean water and delays in attending to sewer bursts or leakages.
Then Harare Town Clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango said, “The drivers for water-borne diseases (cholera and typhoid) have been water cuts or availability of municipal water, contaminated, sewer bursts or leakages, use of shallow wells, illegal vending of cooked food, attending gatherings during an outbreak, poor hygiene practices and household contact to a case.”
The situation has remained the same this year as the capital is still struggling to provide water to residents.
Typhoid fever is a potentially life-threatening illness caused by the bacterium Salmonella typhi.
Salmonella typhi lives only in humans.
Persons with typhoid fever carry the bacteria in their bloodstream and intestinal tract.
In addition, a small number of persons, called carriers, recover from typhoid fever but continue to carry the bacteria. Both ill persons and carriers shed S.typhi in their feces.
The hotspots for water-borne diseases in Harare include Mabvuku-Tafara, Glen View, Glen Norah, Budiriro, Mufakose, Hatcliffe and Dzivaresekwa, where residents resort to using water from “unsafe” boreholes and shallow wells.
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