Humanitarian agencies have raised alerts over hygiene and safe drinking water needs eight days after Cyclone Idai lashed central Mozambique as some cholera cases are reported in the devastated port city of Beira.
Henrietta Fore, the chief of UN children’s agency UNICEF, told AFP news agency in Beira that stagnant water, decomposing bodies and lack of good hygiene and sanitation created a risk of outbreaks of malaria and cholera.
“We are running out of time, it is at a critical point here,” Fore said.
The International Federation of Red Cross said in a statement on Friday that some cholera cases have already been reported in Beira along with an increasing number of malaria infections.
Diaz Simango, the mayor of Beira who has been helping clean up the city by driving excavator, told AFP that cases of diarrhoeal infections had already been reported.
Aid group Doctors Without Borders said people were also at risk of respiratory infections such as pneumonia.
