A week after cholera outbreak declaration in Hammanskraal, the death toll has more than doubled and Tshwane municipality officials still do not know what the source of the outbreak is.
As the City of Tshwane scratches around to find answers, numbers of those treated at the Jubilee District Hospital rose to 229 since Monday, May 15 2023. This includes 23 patients who have been transferred to other health facilities in Tshwane.
As of Saturday, there were 77 patients admitted for diarrhoeal disease. By yesterday evening, the death toll stood at 23. The number of laboratory confirmed cases of Cholera seen at Jubilee stands at 48.
“We don’t know the source of the outbreak, no one knows,” said Tshwane spokesperson Selby Bokaba yesterday.
He said tests of water sources, including reservoirs, had been expanded to water tankers that form part of a semi-permanent chain of water delivery in the Temba supply area.
A borehole in Stinkwater and two water hydrants where water tankers collect water for the people in Hammanskraal have also been tested. And while all test results have come back negative, Bokaba said teams of investigators were working around the clock to find the source.
Until then, the city says it has also roped in the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) as an independent body to conduct their own tests parallel to those of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).
“Patients and families are being questioned to check if there is a commonality in their experiences prior to becoming ill. Some of these commonalities would be to check if they may have eaten something that was maybe bought at the same place. We would then have to trace how this food items was sorted and transported. In the same with water, we would have to look at whether they may have gotten their water from the same place and trace,” said Bokaba
Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink said in an effort to educate members of the public, thousands of pamphlets had been distributed to the community explaining how to treat water that might be unhygienic, and what practices to avoid. These were printed in different languages.
“Hygiene kits obtained from Gift of the Givers are being distributed to as many households as possible while Doctors Without Borders, an organisation with vast experience in treating cholera, is assisting at Jubilee Hospital.
Government has also setup a field hospital in Kanana section, an area dubbed the epicentre of the virus, responsible for 90% of the cases.
Provincial health spokesperson Motalatale Modiba said the six temporary tents had been set up to immediately attend to people presenting with symptoms of dehydration, as vomiting and diarrhoea eliminate water from the body.
“In this temporary hospital, patients are either given oral hydration or Intravenous Hydration on the spot, and the most critical patients are immediately taken to hospitals in Tshwane for further management and admission,” he said.
Modiba said less patients had presented at health facilities with symptoms of diarrhoeal disease and 29 have since been discharged from the facility.
Among those discharged from hospital was Constance Ndlovu, 62, who came to learn of the news of the death of her husband Johannes Mathosi, 63, and daughter Sylvia, 42, nearly a week after they were buried.
For two weeks the family had kept news of the loss a secret from Constance and were advised by nurses to only inform her once she was better.
Her other daughter, Martha Mathosi, said the family asked for the assistance of nurses to break the news to her mother.
“We wanted her to know before we take her home because it would have been harder to explain their absence once we got home. When the nurses told her she broke down, she will never get to see her husband and daughter again.”
“She isn’t fully recovered. She struggles to walk on her own and spends most of her time in bed. But we have called her brothers to be present for support.”
sibiyan@sowetan.co.za
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