Harare - Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic, with a mortality rate of 5.7 percent, is still way out of control and continues to spread, an international aid agency said on Friday.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a statement on Friday the disease that the World Health Organisation says has killed 2 773 people of the 50 000 affected since last August, has exhibited an unusually high death rate, indicating the extent of decay of Zimbabwe's health infrastructure.
"Because of the severity of this outbreak, we fear that it will take many more weeks to get it under control," said head of the IFRC team in Zimbabwe Tony Maryon.
The IFRC said over the past week there has been a 20 per cent increase in cholera deaths in the southern African country and this "rings alarm bells about the need to push back this epidemic and better fund the humanitarian effort on the ground".
The Red Cross said the Zimbabwe cholera crisis has seen the relief agency's largest deployment of resources in any emergency health relief operation anywhere to date.
But the agency said its efforts are harmstrung by lack of funds as the Zimbabwe operation is 60 percent underfunded.
"As it stands now, we won't be able to continue our operations beyond the next four weeks," Mr Maryon said.
Meanwhile, Harare municipal workers - including mortuary attendants and garbage collectors - began an indefinite strike on Friday, joining teachers, doctors, nurses as well as bus drivers in demanding to be paid in US dollars or South African Rands.
"We can't afford to continue to receive our salaries in Zimbabwe currency, which is not buying anything," said Cosmas Bungu, head of the Harare Municipal Workers Union.
With its value eroded daily by the world's highest inflation of more than 231 million percent, the Zimbabwe dollar is nearly worthless and both consumers and traders are increasingly shunning the currency in favour of hard cash.
The cholera epidemic, coupled with a collapsed currency and acute shortages of food and basic commodities, has highlighted Zimbabwe's worsening economic and humanitarian crisis that critics blame on the political crisis.
Southern African Development Community leaders will meet President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in South Africa on Monday at a SADC Summit to try to push them into agreement on a new government of national unity.
