By DPA,
Harare : An outbreak of the deadly cattle-born disease anthrax is threatening Zimbabwe, compounding a seven-week countrywide epidemic of cholera, an international aid agency warned Monday.
The British-based Save the Children Fund said health workers had reported 32 cases of human infection and three deaths. Those who died had probably been eating meat from the carcasses of cattle infected with the disease in remote north-west Zimbabwe.
The disease had already killed 150 livestock, two elephants, 70 hippos and 50 buffalos.
Spokeswoman Rachel Pounds said the outbreak could be the worst since the country’s civil war for black majority rule that preceded independence in 1980, when hundreds of people were reported to have died.
A seven-week epidemic of cholera has spread rapidly through the country, killing 425 people by Friday and almost doubling the number of infected people to 11,000 in a week, according to official figures.