Harare — THE 12 suspected cholera cases reported at Chibuwe Clinic in Chipinge District over the weekend have proved negative for vibrio cholerae that causes the manageable, but deadly disease, a Government official has said.

Secretary for Health and Child Welfare Dr Gerald Gwinji yesterday said the National Cholera Command and Control Centre received an alert from partners on Friday last week indicating that there were about 11 cases with cholera-like symptoms reported in Chipinge from August 6-20.

The information was shared with Government and organisations running hygiene and sanitation programmes to quickly respond to the situation.

"Because we were coming from an outbreak, it is procedure that the cases were treated as cholera while awaiting laboratory results. The results were then released on Tuesday and were all negative. It was just watery diarrhoea," Dr Gwinji said.

Earlier this week, the district reported five more diarrhoea cases, four on Sunday and one on Monday. However, Dr Gwinji said samples taken from the five cases tested negative for cholera. He said the district has sent a provincial team to Chipinge for further investigation.

"Investigations on the actual cause of the diarrhoea are ongoing. It is suspected that it may be due to severe food poisoning since a number of the patients reportedly attended local beer parties prior to developing symptoms," Dr Gwinji said.

He said Chipinge District Hospital had adequate stocks of drugs. Zimbabwe battled with the worst cholera outbreak in its history between August and June this year, which resulted in 4 287 deaths and more than 98 000 reported cases.

The outbreak started in Chitungwiza and spread to 55 of the country's 62 districts. Although Government has declared the outbreak officially over, Dr Gwinji would not rule out fresh outbreaks.

As the United Nations Children's Fund has pointed out, Dr Gwinji said the water and sanitation situation, the major driver of the previous outbreak, had not improved.

Furthermore, Zimbabwe's neighbouring countries are still battling to contain cholera, hence chances of it spreading into the country were high, Dr Gwinji said.