A 24-year-old man has died of cholera in South Africa despite the fact that the country has not had a death linked to the infectious disease for 15 years, health authorities warned on Thursday.
Acute diarrheal infection caused by eating food or drinking water contaminated with bacteria, cholera is on the rise, especially in Africa, the World Health Organization recently warned.
The victim from Benoni, about 40 km from Johannesburg, died on Sunday in hospital, the Ministry of Health said in a statement. The tests carried out were later found to be positive for cholera.
A total of five cases have been recorded in the country since the beginning of the month. The last epidemic in South Africa dates back to 2008-2009, with some 12,000 cases recorded. The disease was then rampant in neighboring Zimbabwe.
This time, the outbreak is in Malawi, a southern African country that is experiencing a deadly wave and is short of vaccines. At least 1,400 people have died out of 45,000 cases reported since March 2022 in this country, which is among the poorest in the world, according to the UN. Cases have also been recorded in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.