Fourteen cholera cases have been confirmed in northern Mozambique following floods caused by a powerful cyclone that battered the country last week, provincial authorities said Friday.
While speaking to local television station STV, the provincial health director, Anastacia Lidimba, said that of the 14 cases, 11 were in the port town of Pemba and three in the district of Mecurifi.
Cyclone Kenneth crashed into the province of Cabo Delgado on Thursday last week, flattening entire villages with winds of up to 280 kph (174 mph) and killing at least 41 people.
“We were already prepared for that – the health care sector has been on the alert since Cyclone Kenneth started,” Anastacia said.
Pemba, a city of 200,000 people and the capital of Cabo Delgado province, is in one of the most cholera-endemic regions in Mozambique, UN humanitarian agency OCHA reported.
The World Health Organization on Thursday said that at least 188,676 people were in need of health assistance or were at risk of disease with 17 health facilities damaged and the number expected to increase as inaccessible areas open up.
