HARARE: An outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe over the last month has now claimed at least 90 lives, including three deaths of Zimbabweans across the border in South Africa, officials have said. At least 37 people have died in Beitbridge, a town on the border with South Africa, Health Minister David Parirenyatwa said on national radio on Thursday. Three Zimbabweans have died across the border in the South African town of Musina, officials there said. Another 37 people have died in the capital Harare, while a new outbreak in the central town of Gweru has killed 13 people, state media said on Thursday. Doctors Without Borders warned on Tuesday that 1.4 million people are at risk of the disease in Harare alone, and cases of cholera have been detected as far away as Durban, on South Africa's southeastern coast. A South African truck driver was found with cholera in Durban, after he returned from Zimbabwe at the weekend, provincial health official Leon Mbangwa said. Zimbabwe's health system, once among the best in Africa, has collapsed under the weight of the world's highest inflation rate, last estimated at 231 million percent in July. Cholera is endemic in parts of rural Zimbabwe, but had been rare in the cities, where most homes have piped water and flush toilets. But after years of economic crisis, the nation's infrastructure is breaking down, leaving many people without access to clean water or proper sanitation.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in
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