JOHANNESBURG - At least 17 people have died in a cholera outbreak in the Hammanskraal township outside South Africa's capital, Pretoria, authorities said Wednesday. The toll has risen from an initial 10 fatalities reported by local health authorities earlier this week.
Authorities said there were another 29 laboratory-confirmed cholera cases, while 67 people were admitted to a hospital and clinics for gastrointestinal infections. Health authorities are yet to confirm the exact source of the cholera outbreak, but poor wastewater management and local government instability in South Africa's capital city have been blamed for the situation.
In neighbouring Zimbabwe, a country with a history of deadly cholera outbreaks, authorities say the capital, Harare, is turning into an epicentre of the current outbreak.
Residents in some suburbs have gone for months without tap water, forcing them to dig shallow wells and boreholes that have been contaminated by raw sewage flowing from burst pipes.
