JOHANNESBURG, 27 August 2009 (IRIN) - A suspected cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe's eastern province of Manicaland has proved a false alarm. About a dozen people reported suffering from cholera-like symptoms between 6 and 20 August in Chipinge district, about 300km southeast of the capital, Harare.

However, a report by the World Health Organization representative in Zimbabwe, Custodia Mandlhate, said "Samples taken from ... five cases tested negative for cholera."

A cholera outbreak that lasted nearly a year, claimed more than 4,000 lives and recorded nearly 100,000 cases of the waterborne disease was declared at an end in July 2009, but the conditions causing the epidemic - broken water and sanitation systems - have been keeping aid agencies on alert as infrastructure remains dilapidated and the disease is expected to return.

The cause of the diarrhoeal illness in Chipinge district was suspected as "severe food poisoning, as a number of the patients reported attending local beer parties prior to developing symptoms," Mandlhate noted.

"This is in agreement with a report from the District Nursing Officer and District Environmental Health Officer, who indicated that the patients seen had yellowish diarrhoea, or mucoid diarrhoea, and not whitish 'rice-water' diarrhoea consistent with cholera," the report commented.

Investigations into the cause of the illness are ongoing.

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