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Durban – Thirty babies died in KwaZulu-Natal hospitals from diarrhoea-related diseases in May and last month, and the provincial health MEC appealed on Tuesday night to new mothers to breastfeed and not bottle feed their infants to avoid infection.
The department of health said that there were 700 more cases of babies with diarrhoea reported than for the same period last year.
This meant that 1 735 babies had suffered from diarrhoea
in the past two months.
“The babies were all under one, not children eating hard foods such as phutu, curry or rice,” said health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo.
The areas most affected were Inanda, Ntuzuma, uMlazi, Amaoti, Mayville and uMbumbulu.
The deaths occurred in uMlazi’s Prince Mshiyeni Memorial Hospital (22), King Edward VIII Hospital (four) and Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital (four).
Dhlomo said they had eliminated contaminated water as the cause, as had been the case a few years ago, as all these areas now had piped water.
“All the babies were bottle-fed and were vaccinated against the Rotavirus,” said the MEC.
But, despite this, in half of the cases, the Rotavirus was still found in their stools, which suggests that they did not respond well to the vaccination, said Dhlomo.
He said it was thought that a lack of hygiene in households where baby formula was prepared was the possible cause.
Dhlomo said if a mother chose to bottle-feed her baby, clean running water had to be used, the formula needed to be covered and refrigerated between feeds and mothers needed to make sure their hands were clean when they prepared the bottles and baby formula.
Dhlomo said a team from all the municipalities affected, the Centres for Disease Control and the department of health had been formed and was monitoring and accessing the situation.
The Mercury
