No new typhoid cases in Neno

There has been no new cases of typhoid fever in Nsambe in Traditional Authority (T/A) Dambe in Neno since February this year, district health authorities have said.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Neno District Health Office (DHO) spokesperson Ganizani Mkwate said cases that were registered before February have also gone down, stressing that there are about 10 cases at present.

He, however, said the situation might not represent the true picture on the ground as the DHO has not conducted surveillance lately.

“Though we have managed to contain the outbreak, there might still be one or two cases in the area which we may not be aware of because, recently, we have not been able to go and conduct surveillance as our health surveillance assistants [HSAs], whom we rely on for such tasks, have been busy,” said Mkwate.

He said the health office is planning to send a team of HSAs to the affected area to assess the picture on the ground.

Ministry of Health (MoH) spokesperson Adrian Chikumbe confirmed the outbreak which was first reported in the area on August 6 2015 and attacked 130 people.

No deaths have been reported in this outbreak, but a similar outbreak in the area claimed 35 lives in 2011.

Chairperson of network of civil society organisations in Neno, Russell Msiska, is on record as having said the area is prone to typhoid because of poor hygiene practices and its geographic position.

Typhoid fever is a life-threatening illness caused by the bacterium Salmonella typhi and spreads through poor hygiene habits and public sanitation conditions, and sometimes by flying insects feeding on faeces. n