A short mango season this year in drought-hit Zimbabwe is helping authorities keep a typhoid outbreak under control, the Herald reported this week.
Thirty-eight cases of typhoid have been confirmed since the beginning of the year, the newspaper said. There are now 402 suspected cases countrywide and one person has died.
Zimbabwe's Ministry of Health and Child Welfare confirmed the outbreak on Twitter on the weekend without giving figures.
The Harare city council's health director, Prosper Chonzi, told the Herald that the rate of new infections was declining. He attributed that partly to a short mango season. Mango trees normally fruit in late December and January. Unwashed and unpeeled fruits can spread typhoid.
Cases of typhoid have now been reported in eight Harare suburbs and in Murehwa, a rural district east of Harare and the provinces of Matabeleland North and Masvingo. Worryingly, two cases of typhoid have been noted at Harare's best-known outdoor eating joint KwaMereki in Warren Park, the Herald said.
The ministry urged Harare residents to pay attention to the way they cook vegetables, as eating contaminated vegetables is one of the key ways typhoid can spread.
"Peel it, boil it, cook it or forget it. #MoHCCZim," the ministry tweeted.
The typhoid cases are understood to be largely unrelated to the 50,000 reported diarrhoea cases so far this year. Though diarrhoea can be a symptom of typhoid, so can constipation.
Source: News24
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