Mr. Mugabe blames the West for the epidemic that is spread by water contaminated with human excrement.
Most fossil bones in museum collections, and even the chemicals used to analyze genetic material, are contaminated with human DNA.
Up to 6,000 people are living on a patch of wasteland, much of it contaminated with human faeces, with no infrastructure whatsoever.
The local stream has become contaminated with human waste and does not provide enough for a place that in high season is bursting at the seams.
Even though all fossil bones in museums are heavily contaminated with human DNA, Dr. Paabo has shown that Neanderthal DNA can be picked out and identified.
A ferocious cholera epidemic, spread by water contaminated with human excrement, has stricken more than 16,000 people across Zimbabwe since August and killed more than 780.
Earlier this year, molecular biologists announced that 20percentnt of nonhuman genome databases are contaminated with human DNA, probably from the researchers who sequenced the samples.
Most fossil bones in museum collections, and even the chemical reagents used to analyze genetic material, are contaminated with human DNA.
The bottom line of their analysis is that Dr. Rubin's results were probably correct but Dr. Paabo's were highly contaminated with human DNA.
In England in the middle of the 19th century, outbreaks of cholera were traced directly to well-water supplies contaminated with human waste from privy vaults and cesspools.
Water contaminated with human waste always contains coliforms, and it is also likely to contain pathogens excreted by infected individuals in the community.
