FIFTEEN years. That’s how long it’s been since South Africa experienced one of its worst cholera outbreaks. Sixty-five people lost their lives in five months and across the country people pleaded: please, never again. Give us basic services to keep our children safe. Make water okay to drink. Fix the sewers.
Now parts of the country are in the grip of a cholera outbreak, with Hammanskraal in Gauteng at the epicentre of the disease. At the time of going to print, 23 people had lost their lives and 77 had been hospitalised – and this shouldn’t be happening, experts say.
“Let me say it bluntly: cholera is a disease of poverty and it thrives where there’s no infrastructure, no sanitation facilities and no clean water supply,” says
