Harare — Five cholera cases have been confirmed in Beitbridge district and health officials are on high alert to curb the spread of the disease.

Matabeleland South provincial medical director Dr Gordon Bango on Tuesday confirmed the outbreak but no deaths had been recorded.

He said the situation was under control and they were using International Organisation for Migration premises as a cholera isolation centre.

One patient was admitted at Beitbridge Hospital on February 3 and another three cases were still under investigations. The other patient is from the border town's main police station.

The district hospital can handle 1 000 cholera patients, while the Doctors Without Boundaries have enough equipment to cater for 625 people.

“We are on high alert and we don’t want to repeat our past mistakes, where a number of lives were lost across the district as a result of the epidemic.

“We have since notified our national cholera command centre in Harare,” said Dr Bango.

The majority of the cases, he said, were of people in transit and they had roped in police support to deal with illegal vendors who foment outbreaks by selling contaminated food.

“The area of Garikayi has no sanitation facilities. The four boreholes in the suburb are not reticulated and the sewer system is still incomplete.

“The health services team also felt that the border post needs to be controlled. At the present moment there are illegal food vendors’ outlets that should be closed.”

During the last cholera outbreak 548 lives were lost in Beitbridge district alone, while about 5 000 cases were reported.

The project coordinator for Doctors Without Boundaries in Beitbridge, Dr Crisitian Ghilardi, said preliminary investigations revealed that 113 cases had been reported in Mwenezi District.