MAPUTO, Jan. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- With the death of seven patients over the weekend, the cholera death toll in Maputo city, the capital of Mozambique, has risen to 19, a situation that the Maputo health authorities describe as very alarming, local media reported on Wednesday.

    The Cholera Treatment Center (CTC), at the Mavalane General Hospital, in Maputo, received 218 new cases of the disease on Monday alone, this being the highest number recorded since the start of the current outbreak in late December last year.

    Maputo health director Olivia Ferreira said that over 857 caseswere admitted to the CTC during the past week, compared to about 99 a week in the previous period.

    Ferreira explained that since the start of the outbreak in December, the Mavalane CTC has diagnosed 2,922 cholera cases.

    As for other provinces, Sofala, in central Mozambique, has recorded 61 new cases on Monday, and 44 of them were reported in Beira city. This brings to 573 the total figure of cholera cases in the entire province, 71 of whom are still under treatment.

    In Zambezia Province, more 17 cholera cases were diagnosed in Quelimane, the provincial capital, on Monday.

    The authorities in Nampula Province, in northern Mozambique, are expressing serious concern over a lack of clean drinking water.Here, seven of the eight patients admitted at the Mucoroge CTC arestill undergoing treatment.

    The local health authorities also fear a worsening of the situation in the southern province of Gaza, where four patients were admitted to the local health unit in the district of Massingir on Monday. Enditem