Zambia has started offering vaccinations against the deadly cholera outbreak that has gripped central Africa in recent months.
The plan is to target two million people most at risk from the disease after the number of those who have fallen sick since the disease broke out reached 2,905.
Cholera has ravaged the African country and prompted curfews and closure of some public buildings as health officials battle to bring the disease under control.
The start of Zambia’s school year has been postponed and all public gatherings have been banned in the capital, Lusaka, where 62 of the 67 cholera deaths have been recorded.
And the ban has also been extended to street vendors while the capital’s passport offices, located in a hub which is always thronged with people, have been closed in a bid to curb the spread of the disease.
Home Affairs minister Stephen Kampyongo said the Passports and Citizenship Office in Lusaka would remain closed until further notice.
Mr Kampyongo said: ”In the meantime officers will only attend to travel emergencies. This is to allow for measures to be put in place to avoid the spread of cholera.”
On Sunday, Zambia declared a curfew in a poor Lusaka township badly affected by a cholera outbreak to avoid crowding and street vending at night.
The curfew in Kanyama, a densely populated slum of iron-roofed shacks and dirt tracks runs from between 6pm and 6am.
Shortly before the new year, Zambian president Edgar Lungu directed the military to help to fight the spread of the waterborne disease.
Cholera causes acute watery diarrhoea. It can be treated with oral hydration solutions and antibiotics but spreads rapidly and can kill within hours if not treated.
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The outbreak, which began in mid-2017, was initially ascribed to contaminated water but it is now feared it may have come from contaminated food too.
It has prompted Namibia, which borders Zambia and stands as one of its largest trading partners, to ban imports of all perishable food, fish, fruits, unprocessed food and water until the health situation returns to normal.
Across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo, at least 1,190 people have been killed by the cholera outbreak since July in what has become the worst outbreak the country has faced in more than two decades.
In recent months a series of records have been broken as normally-manageable disease outbreaks kill record numbers of people.
In late 2017, a plague outbreak in Madagascar caught the world’s attention as it spread rapidly across the country, exceeding previous death tolls.