Robert Mugabe today said that his government had stopped a cholera outbreak, a claim that flew in the face of assessments from international health officials.
The Zimbabwean president's announcement came several hours after South African officials declared the border with Zimbabwe a disaster area and warned that extraordinary measures were needed to control the rising number of cholera cases.
"I am happy we are being assisted by others and we have arrested cholera," Mugabe said in a televised speech in which he also attacked what he described as western plans to invade Zimbabwe and topple his government.
"Now that there is no cholera there is no case for war," Mugabe said.
But his assertions were swiftly contradicted by the French foreign ministry, which said that Zimbabwe had denied visas to a French team of specialists standing by to help fight the outbreak.
"Contrary to what Mr Mugabe says, the cholera epidemic is not under control... France strongly regrets this decision and calls on Zimbabwe's authorities to allow aid to reach the population," a ministry spokesman said.
The team of six included three specialists from the French foreign ministry's crisis centre, two epidemiologists, and a water treatment expert.
During his hour-long address at a funeral for a party official, Mugabe also attacked western leaders. He described Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, and George Bush, the US president as "crooks" who are "guilty of deliberate lies in order to commit acts of aggression".
The World Health Organisation reported yesterday that the cholera crisis in Zimbabwe had worsened. The UN today raised the death toll from the easily preventable disease to 783.
The UN said more than 16,000 cholera cases had been reported in Zimbabwe, where the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy and health care system has left victims to fend for themselves and driven many to try to escape to South Africa.
Despite Mugabe's claims that cholera was under control, South Africa today declared a border area with Zimbabwe a disaster area.
"The whole of the Vhembe district has been declared a disaster area," Mogale Nchabeleng, a spokesman for South Africa's Limpopo provincial government, said. The government took the decision after an emergency meeting earlier this week.
The district includes Musina, a bustling town at the border crossing between South Africa and the cholera-hit town of Beitbridge in Zimbabwe.
Musina is also the entry point for thousands of illegal immigrants fleeing the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe
"These people come in infected and have to be treated. That has been a strain on the capacity of our health infrastructure to respond," Nchabeleng said.
South Africa has said it has no plans to quarantine Zimbabweans crossing over to Musina or other border towns. Aid agencies have warned of Zimbabwe's cholera crisis spreading to neighbouring countries, and the region's shared waterway, the Limpopo river, has tested positive for cholera.
The outbreak, coupled with an economic meltdown, has prompted calls for international humanitarian assistance, as well as calls from western and some African leaders for Mugabe to resign.