MAPUTO: The number of cholera cases has almost doubled in Mozambique in the past 24 hours and the port city of Beira has recorded its first death from the disease since a massive cyclone struck, health chiefs said on Sunday (Mar 31).

Cyclone Idai smashed into Beira on Mar 14, unleashing catastrophic flooding and killing more than 700 people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

The aftermath may prove to be even deadlier with 1.85 million people displaced after entire villages were submerged and households swept away.

"We've now registered one death from cholera. The person came here in a very critical condition. The deceased is the first to die from cholera inside our health facilities," Mozambique's National Director for Medical Assistance, Ussene Isse, said on public television channel TVN.

Isse said 517 cases of the disease had been reported by Sunday, up from the figure of 271 announced on Saturday.

Cholera is endemic to Mozambique, which has had regular outbreaks over the past five years. About 2,000 people were infected in the last outbreak, which ended in February 2018, according to the WHO.

The scale of the damage to Beira's water and sanitation infrastructure, coupled with its dense population, have raised fears that another epidemic would be difficult to put down. </s> BEIRA, Mozambique (AP) - Mozambican authorities have announced the first cholera death among cyclone survivors in the hard-hit city of Beira as the number of cases rises to 517.

Broadcaster TVM on Sunday night cited national health official Ussene Isse for the new toll.

Cases of the acute diarrheal disease have risen dramatically since the outbreak was declared on Wednesday. Cyclone Idai severely damaged the water system for Beira, a city of 500,000, when it hit on March 14.

The World Health Organization has said some 900,000 cholera vaccine doses are set to arrive on Monday.

Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease that is spread by contaminated water and food. It can kill within hours but is relatively easy to treat.

The overall cyclone death toll in Mozambique is now 518.

A mother bathes her baby in a bucket at a camp for displaced survivors of Cyclone Idai in Beira, Mozambique, Sunday, March, 31, 2019. Cholera cases among cyclone survivors in Mozambique have jumped to 271, authorities said. So far no cholera deaths have been confirmed, the report said. Another Lusa report said the death toll in central Mozambique from the cyclone that hit on March 14 had inched up to 501. Authorities have warned the toll is highly preliminary as flood waters recede and reveal more bodies. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

Women and men pick up bricks from a collapsed house to build another structure in Beira, Mozambique, Sunday, March, 31, 2019. Cholera cases among cyclone survivors in Mozambique have jumped to 271, authorities said. So far no cholera deaths have been confirmed, the report said. Another Lusa report said the death toll in central Mozambique from the cyclone that hit on March 14 had inched up to 501. Authorities have warned the toll is highly preliminary as flood waters recede and reveal more bodies. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

A woman fetches water from an unprotected source in Beira, Mozambique, Sunday, March, 31, 2019. Cholera cases among cyclone survivors in Mozambique have jumped to 271, authorities said. So far no cholera deaths have been confirmed, the report said. Another Lusa report said the death toll in central Mozambique from the cyclone that hit on March 14 had inched up to 501. Authorities have warned the toll is highly preliminary as flood waters recede and reveal more bodies. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

Chinese doctors spray chemicals to prevent the spread of cholera at a camp for displaced survivors of Cyclone Idai in Beira, Mozambique, Sunday, March, 31, 2019. Cholera cases among cyclone survivors in Mozambique have jumped to 271, authorities said. So far no cholera deaths have been confirmed, the report said. Another Lusa report said the death toll in central Mozambique from the cyclone that hit on March 14 had inched up to 501. Authorities have warned the toll is highly preliminary as flood waters recede and reveal more bodies. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

Women and children are outside a displacement camp in Beira, Mozambique, Sunday, March, 31, 2019. Mozambican authorities say the number of cholera cases among cyclone survivors has risen to 271. The cases have been discovered in the port city of Beira, raising the stakes in an already desperate fight to help hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in increasingly squalid conditions.(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi)

A young boy is seen outside a displacement camp for survivors of Cyclone Idai in Beira, Mozambique, Sunday, March, 31, 2019. Mozambican authorities say the number of cholera cases among cyclone survivors has risen to 271.The cases have been discovered in the port city of Beira, raising the stakes in an already desperate fight to help hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in increasingly squalid conditions.(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) </s> BEIRA, Mozambique (AP) — Mozambican authorities have announced the first cholera death among cyclone survivors in the hard-hit city of Beira as the number of cases rises to 517.

Broadcaster TVM on Sunday night cited national health official Ussene Isse for the new toll.

Cases of the acute diarrheal disease have risen dramatically since the outbreak was declared on Wednesday. Cyclone Idai severely damaged the water system for Beira, a city of 500,000, when it hit on March 14.

The World Health Organization has said some 900,000 cholera vaccine doses are set to arrive on Monday.

Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease that is spread by contaminated water and food. It can kill within hours but is relatively easy to treat.

The overall cyclone death toll in Mozambique is now 518. </s> BEIRA — The number of confirmed cases of cholera in the cyclone-hit Mozambican port city of Beira jumped from five to 138 yesterday, as government and aid agencies battled to contain the spread of disease among the tens of thousands of victims of the storm.

Cyclone Idai smashed into Beira on March 14, causing catastrophic flooding and killing more than 700 people across three countries in southeast Africa.

Many badly affected areas in Mozambique and Zimbabwe are still inaccessible by road, complicating relief efforts and exacerbating the threat of infection.

Although there have been no confirmed cholera deaths in medical centres in Mozambique yet, at least two people died outside hospitals with symptoms including dehydration and diarrhoea, the country’s Environment minister Celso Correia said.

A Reuters reporter saw the body of a dead child being brought out of an emergency clinic in Beira on Wednesday. The child had suffered acute diarrhoea, which can be a symptom of cholera.

“We expected this, we were prepared for this, we’ve doctors in place,” Correia said.

The government said, for the first time, there had been confirmed cholera cases on Wednesday.

Mozambique’s National Disaster Management Institute said the local death toll from the tropical storm had increased to 493 people, from 468 previously.

That takes the total death toll across Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi to 738 people, with many more still missing.

“Stranded communities are relying on heavily polluted water. This, combined with widespread flooding and poor sanitation, creates fertile grounds for disease outbreaks, including cholera,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement.

In Geneva, the World Health Organisation’s Tarik Jasarevic said 900 000 doses of oral cholera vaccine were expected to arrive on Monday. </s> Johannesburg -- The number of cholera cases among survivors of a devastating cyclone in central Mozambique has jumped to 139, officials have said. Nearly 1 million vaccine doses were being rushed to the region.

The Portuguese news agency Lusa reported the number late Thursday, citing national health official Ussein Isse, who had declared the outbreak a day earlier with just five confirmed cases.

Cholera is a major concern for hundreds of thousands of survivors now living in squalid conditions in camps, schools and sodden homes. The disease is spread by contaminated food and water, causes acute diarrhea and can kill within hours if not treated with oral rehydration solution or intravenous fluids in severe cases.

The World Health Organization has warned of a "second disaster" if waterborne diseases like cholera spread. On Tuesday it said 900,000 oral cholera vaccines were on their way.

"You can imagine how much we are sitting on a water and sanitation ticking time bomb," the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Elhadj As Sy, told The Associated Press last week after visiting a school where 3,000 survivors were sheltering with only six toilets between them.

Some of the hardest-hit communities remained cut off from aid 15 days after Cyclone Idai roared in.

Climate change's role in severe storms and extreme flooding

They are relying on heavily polluted water, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Friday, adding that clear water and medical supplies are urgently needed.

Even in the port city of Beira, the hub of international relief efforts, some of its 500,000 residents have resorted to drinking stagnant water by the side of the road, increasing the chances of diarrhea, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders has said. Others are drinking from contaminated wells.

The aid group has seen hundreds of cases of acute watery diarrhea this week.

The death toll in Mozambique is now at least 468, with at least 259 dead in Zimbabwe and 56 in Malawi. Officials have warned that those numbers are preliminary and final figures may never be known. Some bodies have been found and buried without being registered with authorities. Others were washed away.

As the floodwaters continue to drain, more bodies are expected to be found.

A patient with severe diarrhea is treated in a tent at Macurungo urban health center in Beira, Mozambique, amid a cholera outbreak in the wake of Cyclone Idai, March 27, 2019. Getty

Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi on Thursday announced that the search and rescue phase had ended. He also declared that health care would be free for residents in cyclone-hit areas until the end of the year, Lusa reported.

The United Nations has said some 1.8 million people need urgent help across the sodden, largely rural region. Hunger is another growing concern, as the storm wiped out crops on the eve of harvest.

Officials have found a slender hope in the weather report, which appears free of rain for the next several days. </s> MAPUTO - Cholera has infected at least 1,052 people in Mozambique's cyclone-hit region, the health ministry said Monday in a new report, marking a massive increase from 139 cases reported four days ago.

The mounting cases represent on average more than 200 cases of new infections each day.

Although hundreds have been taken ill with cholera since last week, only one death has been reported so far, tallies compiled by the ministry showed.

A mass vaccination campaign is due to be rolled out on Wednesday as authorities and aid workers are scrambling to avert an epidemic more than two weeks after a devastating cyclone slammed Mozambique.

Some 900,000 doses of oral cholera vaccines were due to arrive in the cyclone-battered Beira city on Tuesday, from the global stockpile for emergency, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"Vaccination against cholera begins on Wednesday in Beira," a senior Mozambican health official Ussein Isse said.

The central city of Beira is the worst affected, accounting for 959 out of the total 1,052 cases.

The city of more than half-a-million people recorded 247 cases in 24 hours between Sunday and Monday morning.

Cholera is transmitted through contaminated drinking water or food and causes acute diarrhoea.

The numbers of cholera cases are expected to rise due to the increasing numbers of people reporting to health centres with symptoms, said the WHO in a statement.

"The next few weeks are crucial and speed is of the essence if we are to save lives and limit suffering," WHO chief for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said in the statement.

Cyclone Idai killed more than 700 people across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe and hundreds of thousands have been left homeless - many of whom have been forced to use dirty water supplies. At least 518 of those deaths have occured in Mozambique.

Experts have warned that the destruction of drinking water sources and lack of sanitation in overcrowded shelters in Mozambique create breeding grounds for waterborne diseases such as cholera.

To control the outbreak, vast quantities of drinking water and water purification units have been delivered to affected areas.

A publicity blitz to raise awareness of the cholera situation is also underway.

More than 146,000 people have been displaced from their homes by the cyclone and subsequent floods are are sheltering in 155 sites across four provinces of Sofala, Manica, Zambezia and Tete, according to the UN.

GALLERY: After the storm, relief & shelter for survivors of Cyclone Idai </s> BEIRA, Mozambique (Reuters) - The number of confirmed cases of cholera in the cyclone-hit Mozambican port city of Beira jumped from five to 138 on Friday, as government and aid agencies battled to contain the spread of disease among the tens of thousands of victims of the storm.

Cyclone Idai smashed into Beira on March 14, causing catastrophic flooding and killing more than 700 people across three countries in southeast Africa.

Many badly affected areas in Mozambique and Zimbabwe are still inaccessible by road, complicating relief efforts and exacerbating the threat of infection.

Although there have been no confirmed cholera deaths in medical centers in Mozambique yet, at least two people died outside hospitals with symptoms including dehydration and diarrhea, the country’s environment minister Celso Correia said.

A Reuters reporter saw the body of a dead child being brought out of an emergency clinic in Beira on Wednesday. The child had suffered acute diarrhea, which can be a symptom of cholera.

“We expected this, we were prepared for this, we’ve doctors in place,” Correia told reporters.

The government said for the first time that there had been confirmed cholera cases on Wednesday.

Mozambique’s National Disaster Management Institute said the local death toll from the tropical storm had increased to 493 people, from 468 previously.

That takes the total death toll across Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi to 738 people, with many more still missing.

“Stranded communities are relying on heavily polluted water. This, combined with widespread flooding and poor sanitation, creates fertile grounds for disease outbreaks, including cholera,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement.

In Geneva, the World Health Organization’s Tarik Jasarevic said 900,000 doses of oral cholera vaccine were expected to arrive on Monday.

Cholera is endemic to Mozambique, which has had regular outbreaks over the past five years. About 2,000 people were infected in the last outbreak, which ended in February 2018, according to the WHO.

But the scale of the damage to Beira’s water and sanitation infrastructure, coupled with its dense population, have raised fears that another epidemic would be difficult to put down. </s> BEIRA, Mozambique — Cholera cases in cyclone-hit Mozambique have risen above 1,400, government officials said Tuesday, as hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses arrived in an attempt to limit the rapid spread of the disease.

Authorities announced a second death from cholera, which causes acute diarrhea and is spread by contaminated food and water — conditions that some 128,000 displaced cyclone survivors now risk daily while living in temporary, often crowded, shelters. Cholera can kill within hours if not treated.

The cholera outbreak has grown swiftly since it was declared last week with five confirmed cases. Now there are 1,428, most of them in the hard-hit port city of Beira, which has been the hub of relief efforts since Cyclone Idai roared in on March 14.

The city of a half-million residents is most at risk from cholera but the disease also is reported in outlying communities in central Mozambique. The new death was in Dondo, government officials said.

Monday's count of cholera cases had been 1,052.

That figure was already more than double the 500 beds that are now open in seven cholera treatment centres across the region, though the World Health Organization said it plans to "boost the capacity significantly."

Authorities on Tuesday also said the overall death toll in Mozambique from the cyclone had risen to 598. The number has been called very preliminary and the real toll may never be known, with some people quickly buried or washed away.

Some 900,000 oral cholera vaccines arrived in Beira for the expected launch of a vaccination campaign on Wednesday.

"The next few weeks are crucial and speed is of the essence if we are to save lives and limit suffering," WHO's regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said in a statement.

Cyclone Idai also killed at least 259 people in neighbouring Zimbabwe and at least 56 in Malawi. </s> BEIRA, Mozambique (AP) — The first cases of cholera have been confirmed in the cyclone-ravaged city of Beira, Mozambican authorities announced on Wednesday, raising the stakes in an already desperate fight to help hundreds of…

BEIRA, Mozambique (AP) — The first cases of cholera have been confirmed in the cyclone-ravaged city of Beira, Mozambican authorities announced on Wednesday, raising the stakes in an already desperate fight to help hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in increasingly squalid conditions.

The five cholera cases were confirmed in Munhava, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the hard-hit port city , the national director of medical assistance, Ussene Isse, told reporters. The city of some 500,000 people is still struggling to provide clean water and sanitation after Cyclone Idai roared in on March 14.

“You know, cholera is an epidemic situation. When you have one case, you expect to have more cases in the community,” Isse said.

Cholera is a major concern for cyclone survivors now living in crowded camps, schools, churches and any land exposed by the still-draining flood waters. The disease is spread by contaminated food and water, causes acute diarrhea and can kill within hours if not treated with oral rehydration solution or intravenous fluids in severe cases.

The World Health Organization has warned of a “second disaster” if waterborne diseases like cholera spread in the devastated region. On Tuesday it said 900,000 oral cholera vaccines were expected to arrive later this week.

The cyclone has killed more than 460 people in Mozambique and left 1.8 million people in need of urgent help. President Filipe Nyusi last week estimated that 1,000 people had been killed. The toll could be higher as floodwaters drain away and reveal more bodies, some emergency responders have said. The actual number of dead may never be known.

Health workers were opening clinics across Beira, the center of relief operations for the region.

Some people in the city have resorted to drinking stagnant water by the side of the road, increasing the chances of diarrhea, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders said. Other people are drinking from contaminated wells.

The aid group said it has seen hundreds of cases of acute watery diarrhea in the past few days.

“The scale of extreme damage will likely lead to a dramatic increase of waterborne diseases, skin infections, respiratory tract infections and malaria in the coming days and weeks,” said Gert Verdonck, the group’s emergency coordinator in Beira.

Hurried efforts continued to restore running water to Beira. The United Nations children’s agency said parts of the city’s water supply system were working again, with “water running in 60 percent of the pipes.” The government also was operating water trucks.

Relief operations continued to explore ways to deliver aid to the city that remains largely reachable only by air and sea. More challenging was reaching rural communities, some of them still without contact with the outside world.

More humanitarian actors arrived as the United Nations urges the international community to fund a $282 million emergency appeal for the next three months.

The U.N. refugee agency announced that its first aid flight had landed in the capital, Maputo, with plans to immediately transport the tents, mosquito nets and other items to Beira.

Two other flights are planned for Zimbabwe and Malawi this week.

The death toll in Mozambique is now at least 468, with 259 dead in Zimbabwe and at least 56 dead in Malawi.

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The first death due to cholera is confirmed in Mozambique, with confirmed cases rising to 517.