NICD punts hand hygiene & clean water as preventative steps against Typhoid fever

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) says people can prevent infection of enteric fever, also known at Typhoid fever, by practising good hand hygiene and consuming safe drinking water.

There has been a recent increase in cases of enteric fever in South Africa.

The last time there was a large outbreak in the country was in Delmas in 2005 but since then South Africa averaged less than 150 cases per year.

During 2020 and 2021, the total number of cases reported didn’t differ much from previous years but the NICD noticed an increase in the Western Cape and North West’s numbers.

The NICD’s Dr Juno Thomas said using whole-genome sequencing they found there were clusters of small localized outbreaks caused by different strains in three districts of the Western Cape and one district in the North West.

She said the number of cases in each cluster was relatively small, ranging from 11 to 16.

“The provinces are aware of these clusters and are investigating them. Contaminated municipal water is extremely unlikely to be the source of infection in any of these clusters and the root of transmission are probably quite complicated and challenging to investigate at this point.”

-EWN

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