LUANDA, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Schistosomiasis which broke out in Kindeje, Nzeto district, northern Ziare province of Angola since October has killed at least nine people, a local health official said on Friday.

    Paulo Seixas Nelembe, head of the Nzeto District Health Bureau, told reporters that since October more than 300 cases of the illness have been diagnosed.

    According to him, the cause of the expansion of the disease is poor quality of water consumed by local people which are fetched by local people from rivers, lagoons and wells.

    He said more medical workers have been dispatched to the Kindeje area to carry out awareness campaigns on how to treat water before drinking it and distribute anti-parasite medicine to the sick.

    Schistosomiasis or bilharziosis is a serious typical disease of Africa that is caused by several species of fluke of the genus schistosoma that affects internal organs.