President denies epidemic despite thousands fleeing the disease-ravaged country to seek medical help.

    Robert Mugabe has said the cholera crisis ravaging Zimbabwe has been stopped, even as the disease prompted South Africa to declare a disaster area on its northern border and the UN revealed that the death toll from the disease had risen again. In a televised address yesterday that showed the 83-year-old President to be in a complete state of denial over the epidemic, he said there was now "no cholera".

    Shortly after Mr Mugabe's address, Elisabeth Byrs, the UN spokeswoman in Geneva, said: "The figures speak for themselves." UN statistics show the death toll has risen to 783, with 16,403 reported infections. "We hope that the joint efforts of the United Nations and government will contribute to halting the epidemic."

    The disease, which is preventable and treatable, is more commonly associated with natural disaster areas or war zones, with the most recent outbreak coming in Eastern Congo where conflict has displaced 250,000 people.

    But it has spread rapidly through the once-prosperous southern African nation where basic infrastructure had eroded to a dangerous degree and whose shattered health system has been unable to respond.

    Washington, which yesterday pledged $6m (4m) in health aid, was equally categorical. "This is a cholera outbreak that is ongoing and urgent," said Usaid administrator Henrietta Fore. "We are not seeing that it has stopped."

    South Africa's border district of Vhembe was declared a disaster area after the disease has travelled over with millions of Zimbabweans across the frontier. More than 600 cases have been reported in South Africa with at least eight deaths recorded so far from the water-borne disease. The river Limpopo which flows along the border area between Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique has tested positive for the cholera bacteria.

    Instead of addressing what is fast becoming a regional crisis, Mr Mugabe chose to rail against his favourite targets of Britain and the US who he accused of plotting regime change. "Now there is no cholera, there is no need for war," he said. "We need doctors, not soldiers."

    Kenya's Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, had last week called for an African Union meeting to discuss sending troops in to restore health and stability. And many Western nations have used the crisis to repeat calls for the ageing liberation leader to step down.

    The cholera epidemic has thrown the spotlight back on the failure of regional leaders to apply any meaningful pressure on Mr Mugabe who has been refusing to cede any real authority in a South African-brokered power-sharing deal with the opposition.

    Botswana, which has been the most vocal neighbouring power, stepped up the pressure by calling for a fuel blockade. "If you switch off petrol, I think that Zanu-PF will have to go," Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani told the Associated Press yesterday. "If that step is agreed and you then simultaneously airlift critical supplies such as food and essential supplies to prevent Zimbabweans from starving to death, I think it will have the desired effect."

    Mr Mugabe, the former teacher turned independence leader, lost the presidential election in March and held on to power only after unleashing the security forces on the opposition in a political terror campaign.

    Any hopes that last week's declaration of a health emergency in Zimbabwe and an appeal to the World Health Organisation for help might usher in a more realistic response from the Mugabe regime was scotched by his broadcast. He thanked the WHO for its assistance and insisted that the disease had come from "outside countries".

    Zimbabwe has already denied visas to a French team of specialists standing by to help stem the outbreak. "Contrary to what Mr Mugabe says, the cholera epidemic is not under control," said French foreign ministry spokesman Frederic Desagneaux. "France strongly regrets this decision and calls on Zimbabwe's authorities to allow aid to reach the population."

    The cholera outbreak is only one part of the crisis confronting Zimbabwe, with huge food shortages and mass starvation an immediate threat. Kerry Kay, the welfare secretary for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change rubbished claims that the crisis was over. "How do you control a cholera epidemic if there is no clean water and if raw sewage is running into wells?" Ms Kay asked. "God only knows how people are surviving,"

    And 22 civil rights activists, including the Zimbabwe peace project director Jesina Mukoko, are still missing after being detained by presumed state agents.

    The government has also been accused of murdering more than 80 people in the diamond-mining area of Mutare. Claims that illegal miners had been killed were initially denied but now land has been requested for a mass burial. The men are believed to have been killed in the past three weeks.