LUANDA, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Angola's Ministry of Health (MINSA) declared a cholera outbreak Friday evening, with 12 deaths reported since the first case confirmed on Tuesday, according to a bulletin shared with Xinhua.
As of 6 p.m. local time on Friday, a total of 119 cholera cases have been recorded, with 14 cases confirmed through laboratory testing, while 12 samples remained under analysis.
In the past 24 hours, 24 new cholera cases were identified, with 20 concentrated in Cacuaco Municipality, the epicenter of the outbreak. Cacuaco, a suburban area in Angola's capital province of Luanda, is home to over 1.2 million people.
Of the 119 cases reported, 53 percent are female and 47 percent male. Eleven of the 12 deaths occurred in Cacuaco.
The bulletin defines a cholera case as "a patient with severe or extreme dehydration, or death due to acute watery diarrhea, with or without vomiting, in individuals over the age of two in areas where cholera is present." A confirmed case is "a suspected case where the cholera vibrio has been isolated in stool samples."
A timeline chart in the bulletin indicated cholera symptoms were first observed in a patient on December 31, 2024.
