South African President Cyril Ramaphosa attempted to reassure inhabitants of a village near Pretoria after a cholera epidemic killed 29 people.
Ramaphosa stated during a visit to the local water treatment facility that the government had failed to avert the epidemic.
“The water produced by the Temba water plant is unfit for human consumption. So we’ve truly let our people down here in Tshwane, and I went so far as to confess it “, according to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Investigations are ongoing to try to identify the source of the outbreak.
On Wednesday, provincial health authorities said that since last week, 165 people have visited a local hospital in Hammanskraal with symptoms including diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting.
“I’m told now that the incidence of people going into hospitals with cholera has really come down, the investigations are still ongoing to finally determine where the source of this was”, concluded the president.
South Africa recorded its first two cholera cases in February on the back of outbreaks in nearby Mozambique and Malawi, the two most severely affected countries in 2023, according to the UN.
