Photo: Unsplash
Photo: Unsplash
More cases of Typhoid Fever have been accounted for in South Africa this week, just days after the NICD identified a number of recent ‘cluster outbreaks’. However, it doesn’t appear there’s any need to panic.
Typhoid is a potentially fatal disease, but it’s by no means a death sentence for those who come down with it. A total of seven cases have been reported in Gauteng – with the latest one traced to Tshwane on Thursday.
Tshwane health MMC, Rina Marx, has insisted that neither the province nor the metro has experienced a cluster outbreak like the ones witnessed in the Western Cape or North West over the past few weeks:
“Laboratory confirmed reported cases in Tshwane since January 2022 are five, including a new one on Thursday, Reported cases this far are distributed, but there is currently no distinct cluster outbreak and the health department’s teams are monitoring all reported cases closely.”
Rina Marx
The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) published a table of recent outbreaks on their website earlier this week. Adding the latest Gauteng data to this, we can see that the spread is fairly limited:
Province | District | Number of cases | Date of first case | Date of most recent case |
Western Cape | City of Cape Town Metropolitan | 14* | November 2020 | January 2022 |
Western Cape | Cape Winelands | 11* | July 2020 | May 2021 |
Western Cape | Garden Route | 12* | August 2020 | December 2021 |
North West | Dr Kenneth Kaunda | 16* | November 2020 | December 2021 |
Gauteng | Tshwane | 5 | December 2021 | February 2022 |
Gauteng | Other | 2 | December 2021 | February 2022 |
Case numbers with a * next to them represent cluster outbreaks.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, public interest in disease outbreaks has soared. That’s why the health authorities are doing their best to communicate the situation clearly. As noted by some of the country’s leading experts, you may have Typhoid Fever if you come down with these symptoms: