Harare - Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak has rapidly spread to nearly all of the country's 10 provinces, a government minister said Friday.

Health minister David Parirenyatwa was quoted in the state-run daily Herald as saying that nine provinces had reported the presence of the deadly and highly infectious diarrheal disease. The crowded township of Budiriro in Harare, the capital, was established as the epicentre of the epidemic.

The government has given scant details of fatalities, but United States ambassador James McGee said that 294 people had died since the outbreak began in early October, a figure confirmed by an official from an independent medical research organisation who requested anonymity.

The official also said that 6,000 cases had been recorded across the country.

The disease has spilled over into neighbouring South Africa, where desperate Zimbabweans have flocked for treatment. Three people have died in the border town of Musina and another 18 are receiving treatment in the town's hospital.

"The ministry is battling to control unprecedented cholera outbreaks affecting the country," Parirenyatwa said.

On Friday, state radio reported that the western city of Bulawayo, the country's second largest urban area, had reported its first cases, with two deaths.

Zimbabwe's health, sanitation and water supply systems have all but collapsed as a severe economic crisis, blamed on the populist policies of President Robert Mugabe's government, is shutting systems down.

In the first official admission of the severity of the health crisis, Parirenyatwa said: "I want to admit that the situation in government hospitals is bad."

At a hospital in the north-eastern town of Mutoko, where cholera had claimed three lives while 59 were being treated, the minister said officials were considering closing the facility "owing to critical food shortages." (dpa)