Although the direct source of the Hammanskraal cholera outbreak is still to be determined, the search is being widened to check if transmission were caused by travel, said Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla.
The City of Tshwane and the Department of Water & Sanitation (DWS) were also continuing to check water sources for contamination.
Recent cases could be traced to two sisters from Diepsloot, Johannesburg, who had travelled by bus to Malawi in January and returned on 30 January.
One of the women’s husbands subsequently tested positive for cholera, before eight more cases were confirmed: six in Johannesburg, and two in Ekurhuleni.
Phaahla said these cases were linked to travel to an endemic country, but the two in Ekurhuleni could not be directly linked, reports TimesLIVE.
In Gauteng, and Tshwane in particular, Phaahla said the first reported case was a man originally from Limpopo, living in Musina.
He was enrolled for a three-week course at the SAPS college in Hammanskraal, starting on 8 May.
He complained of diarrhoea and vomiting on 12 May and was taken by ambulance to Muelmed Hospital in Pretoria three days later.
“Laboratory tests confirmed cholera on 15 May and further confirmed by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) on 18 May. He is still in ICU in a stable condition receiving treatment,” he said.
A follow-up by the outbreak response team revealed that other students were also complaining of gastrointestinal symptoms, with 33 of them seen at various health facilities resulting in eight admissions. All are in a stable condition.
The national Health Department and Gauteng Health outbreak response team were called to Jubilee District Hospital on 19 May and informed about a number of patients who had arrived with gastrointestinal symptoms since 15 May, when the police officer was admitted to Muelmed Hospital.
“We need to check whether there might have been some contact with people travelling before he came to Hammanskraal,” said Phaahla. “Because the area has had challenges with the quality of water for a long time, it’s easy for us to take the easy route and blame the source of the infections on the water.”
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