Geneva: A major cholera outbreak in Tanzania has now infected nearly 10,000 people and killed 150, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, voicing concern that predicted flooding risked spreading the disease internationally.
Since the beginning of the outbreak in August, at least 9,871 people have become infected and 150 have died, the UN health agency said, citing laboratory confirmed figures from Tanzanian health authorities.
That marks a doubling of the figures provided a month ago, when WHO put the number of cases at 4,922, including 74 deaths.
The east African country's largest city Dar es Salaam was most affected, with nearly 4,500 cases, WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told reporters in Geneva.
Cholera, which is transmitted through contaminated drinking water and causes acute diarrhoea, has spread across the country, including to two islands in the Zanzibar archipelago.
QNA
