WHO: Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic, 98,309 cases, 4,283 deaths

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.fingaz.co.zw/story.aspx?stid=814

(Zimbabwe) Disaster looms
Nelson Chenga & Charles Rukuni, Staff Reporters

Doctors warn water crisis now at tipping point

A HEALTH disaster of unimaginable proportions looms in Harare after the water situation deteriorated even further this week, sparking fresh health concerns as an outbreak of cholera in Chitungwiza claimed two more lives this week bringing to 13 the total number of deaths so far.

The water crisis in Harare and in Chitungwiza, approximately 30 kilometres south of the capital, has reached critical levels forcing doctors and the cities' residents associations to exert pressure on government to put its house in order and avoid continued loss of lives.
Faced with severe shortages of foreign currency required to import water purification chemicals and spares to repair the ageing water infrastructure, the government has all but admitted it does not have the capacity to deal with the problem.
The confusion over Cabinet appointments has not helped the situation.
The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) this week said a serious health crisis looms in urban areas owing to the severe shortage of running water.
Failure by the state-run Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) to treat and pump adequate supplies of water has left most urban homes dry and forced residents to rely on unsafe sources of water.
This, coupled with a breakdown in the sanitation system (burst sewage pipes and lack of refuse collection and proper disposal) is threatening the health of millions of Zimbabweans at a time when the health delivery system is least prepared to deal with any major outbreak of diseases due to the brain drain and the shortage of drugs.
Water and sanitation experts, including the few engineers left at ZINWA, have warned of the impending health and environmental crisis but their appeals have fallen on deaf ears.
ZINWA has since admitted it has not been treating the more than 300 megalitres of waste produced in the capital, which is simply being discharged into Harare's main source of raw water, Lake Chivero.
The untreated waste water has contaminated more than half of Lake Chivero. As a result the water treatment bill has spiked to such levels that ZINWA is now unable to procure the enormous amount of chemicals needed to treat the murky Chivero water for safe human consumption.
Water experts have also said the treatment of Harare water has become complicated because the waste water discharges were highly contaminated with industrial toxins, which need complex methods to remove, thus exposing consumers to health complications other than cholera.
"The new government must address this crisis as a matter of urgency. It is a matter, which cannot wait for resolution of differences or 'sticking points'. Public service provision has been inadequate for several years and requires urgent and comprehensive remedial action," said ZADHR.
The association told The Financial Gazette this week that access to safe drinking water and to adequate sanitation are basic human rights and not privileges.
"They (access to sanitation and water) are determinants of health, which if not made available can result in outbreaks of diarrhoea, cholera and dysentery that are life threatening.
"Lives have already been lost to cholera in Chitungwiza and health centres in Harare and Bulawayo are burdened by numerous cases of diarrhoea on a daily basis. It is highly likely that the number of deaths in Chitungwiza, currently reported at 13 individuals, is much higher, and that this is but the tip of an iceberg of much more morbidity. This has not been communicated to the public," said the association.
Outbreaks of cholera at any time are symptomatic of serious structural problems within the system of public works. They are more common when rains have resulted in flooding or overload of drainage systems.
An outbreak in the middle of the dry season is particularly disturbing.
This week Health Minister David Parirenyatwa urged urbanites to be on high alert in the wake of the outbreak of cholera in Chitungwiza.
"I would like to urge those who might be experiencing watery diarrhoea, vomiting and rapid severe dehydration to quickly report to any clinic," the daily Herald quoted the Minister as saying.
But the association of doctors yesterday said it was not good enough for the Health Ministry to respond to disease outbreak only after it has occurred.
"It is paramount that it (Ministry of Health) works in conjunction with other ministries concerned, such as that responsible for water resources, and ZINWA, to ensure that disease is prevented and that Zimbabwean's right to the highest attainable state of physical and mental well being is respected," it said.
Meanwhile, water problems have once again come to the fore in Bulawayo following reports that staff from ZINWA who are supposed to maintain boreholes at the Nyamandlovu aquifer, one of the city's lifelines, have abandoned the site.
The council only has 20 months of water supply left and has been banking on rehabilitating boreholes at Nyamandlovu. The council had asked ZINWA to allow it to lease an agreed number of boreholes, which the council would maintain but ZINWA has refused to commit itself.
The council says it has the spare parts and the staff to maintain the boreholes as well as well-wishers who are prepared to fund the operations.
ZINWA, which was allowed technically to take over water supplies in the city but never did so, is reported to have lost a lot of its staff. Its maintenance team at Nyamandlovu was reported to have left the site.
The parastatal has been facing persistent cash shortages with staff going for months without pay.
The mayor Clr Thaba Moyo was concerned about the latest development because the council could not rehabilitate the boreholes without consulting ZINWA because it owned the boreholes.
Bulawayo has been facing perennial water problems because its supply dams are now too small for the city of more than one million people. No new dam has been built for the city over the past 30 years.
The city was looking forward to the Zambezi Water Project but it has also been bogged down by bureaucracy and lack of funds.
Some city residents have been querying how the project will proceed now that its chairman, Dumiso Dabengwa, is out of mainline politics.
Dabengwa left ZANU-PF to join Mavambo Project before the March elections and has since abandoned the project.

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200810220782.html

Zimbabwe: Water Crisis - Health Catastrophe Looms in Harare
Zimbabwe Standard (Harare)
Posted to the web 22 October 2008

Bertha Shoko

THE water crisis has transformed urban areas into rustic habitats.

Driving along the Kambuzuma-Mufakose road next to the rail-road crossing in Harare, one would be forgiven for thinking they are in the middle of a rural village.

At one end there are women washing clothes. At the other, young boys and girls who would have accompanied their mothers to the "well" can be seen naked, bathing themselves in plastic dishes. Others can be seen playing near the common "water hole" oblivious of the dangers of playing next to a rail-road crossing and the busy Kambuzuma-Mufakose road.

After two weeks without water, residents of Kambuzuma high-density area have been converging at this spot from as early as 5am queuing with buckets, dishes, and metal containers to fetch water for various household uses.

The water comes from a burst water pipe that has gone unrepaired for months. This site is just one of the many points people in the area have come to rely on since suffering water cuts by the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa).

Further down towards Mufakose, opposite the police station, another community "well" has emerged. It is a burst water pipe that residents of Mufakose have been relying on since Zinwa also cut water supplies.

As the water crisis worsened throughout Harare, many desperate residents in areas such as Mufakose and Kambuzuma, Budiriro, Glen View, Highfield, Kuwadzana, Glen Norah and Warren Park could be seen looking for water from open wells and burst water pipe points, sparking fears of a disease outbreak. In Glen Norah residents rely on water from a dam between Glen Norah A and B.

On October 11 Zinwa warned residents of a possible disruption to water supplies - almost a week after the water supplies had been cut. Zinwa said the crisis would last, at the most, for four days because of a breakdown at Morton Jaffray Waterworks - Harare's main water treatment plant. The four days have turned to weeks. In some areas supplies were restored last week for a day or two, only to disappear again, drawing the ire of many residents.

Residents who spoke to The Standard last week expressed anger with government for lack of commitment to resolving the problems at Zinwa. Elizabeth Mufuri, from Mhishi in Mufakose, said she was disheartened by the selfishness of those in power.

Mufuri and many others in that part of Mufakose are travelling about 5km to Crowborough North, near Kuwadzana to fetch water. For toilet and bathing purposes residents draw water for bathing and flushing their toilets from the Mukuvisi river, where they risk drowning.

"We have suffered enough. I wish the government could just realise this. We have no rest in this country. If it's not electricity cuts, it is water cuts," Mufuri said. "We never have a break because of problems created by Zanu PF."

Eight days ago, the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (Zimcodd) petitioned Zinwa saying it feared a disease outbreak in the high-density areas because of the high numbers of the population densities. The petition was also directed to the ministries of Water Resources and Infrastructural Development, and Local Government and Public Works and Urban Development.

In the petition Zimcodd - a coalition of civic groups and individuals focused on socio-economic justice - is seeking the reversal of Zinwa's takeover of water distribution, administration and sewer reticulation in local authorities across the country.

Information and Communications Officer of Zimcodd, Simbiso Marimbe-Marasha, said the water management problems at Zinwa threatened the country's urban development.

"The spectre of water-borne diseases now threatens the country's urban population of approximately 4,5 million, where it is now widely reported that some municipalities are releasing raw sewerage into rivers and dams," Marimbe-Marasha said.

Adding its voice to the prevailing water crisis, Combined Harare Resident's Association (CHRA)'s chief executive officer, Barnabas Mangodza, said Zinwa's takeover of water from the City of Harare was ill- advised. Mangodza said the incompetence of Zinwa would cause more deaths if allowed to continue.

"(Zinwa) has failed to provide enough clean water to Harare and Chitungwiza. Zinwa is also reported to be failing to procure enough water treatment chemicals needed to purify water before it is pumped into homes," said Mangodza. "This has led to the suspicion that Zinwa is pumping untreated or partially treated water to residents. We continue to receive disturbing reports of cholera and diarrhoea related illnesses and deaths from different parts in and around the city of Harare."

The death toll for the Chitungwiza cholera outbreak, which was triggered by water cuts, continues to rise, with fears that if normal service is not restored, many more people will die.

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/30/africa/AF-Zimbabwe.php

Cholera outbreak hits Harare
The Associated Press
Published: October 30, 2008

HARARE, Zimbabwe: Health authorities say the first person has died from cholera in Zimbabwe's capital Harare after outbreaks elsewhere in the country.

At least 27 people have died from cholera, mostly in impoverished districts, across the country in recent weeks and hundreds have been treated for the highly infectious intestinal disease spread by contaminated food and water.

Doctors have reported at least 120 preventable deaths from cholera and diarrhea this year as sewer and drainage service collapse in the nation's economic meltdown. Infrastructure has been left to crumble for months with politicians deadlocked first over disputed elections and now over forming a power sharing government.

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Source: http://www.radiovop.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4292&Itemid=755

Cholera Claims 20 Lives in Budiriro

HARARE, November 2 2008 - More than twenty people died of Cholera in Harare's Budiriro high density suburb last week, contrary to government's claims that only six people lost their lives to the disease, RadioVOP can reveal.

This puts the number of people who have succumbed to Cholera, a preventable and treatable disease, to over 50 in less than two months in the whole country.

A senior health official in Harare told RadioVOP that 11 people have died from Cholera at the health centre in the past 2 days.

The official said he expected more deaths as dozens of critically ill patients continue to throng the hospital seeking treatment. He said medical stocks were running low as demand increases.

?Since yesterday, we have recorded 11 deaths and more than 70 Cholera patients are admitted here. The deaths are well over 20 since the outbreak,? said the official, who requested anonymity.

The outbreak has been attributed to the erratic supply of water by the failed Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA), resulting in some residents drinking water from contaminated and sewage-drenched shallow wells

Beatrice Road Infectious Disease Hospital has had to move all TB patients to Wilkins Hospital to create space for cholera patients, mostly from Budiriro and Glen View.

In the past week, cases of Cholera have also been recorded in Mbare, Dzivarasekwa, Highfields and Glen Norah.

Tsitsi Singizi, Unicef communications officer, said their organization was providing affected residents with water tanks, treatment tablets, hygiene education and oral dehydration solutions.

The Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) said the government had underestimated Cholera deaths as some were also recorded in Dzivarasekwa. CHRA said several Dzivarasekwa residents had succumbed to the disease and that most cases had not been reported.

Health minister, David Parirenyatwa, could not be reached for comment. He was recently quoted as saying his ministry was working to resolve the crisis.

But CHRA said it doubted government's sincerity.

?CHRA dismisses the defacto Minister of Health and Zanu PF?s crocodile tears and grandstanding - trying to appear as if they are concerned about the health of residents when the pandemic has been looming for the better part of the year,? said CHRA.

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Source: http://www.swradioafrica.com/news121108/deathcamp121108.htm

Zimbabwe becomes a death camp, as more people succumb to cholera

By Violet Gonda
12 November 2008

We are increasingly receiving disturbing reports from across the country that more and more people are succumbing to cholera, as every aspect of Zimbabwean society collapses. Even the state controlled Herald newspaper reports seeing two trucks ferrying dead bodies from Budiriro, to an infectious disease mortuary on Tuesday.

A reports from the north east border town of Nyamapanda says that bodies are being buried in very shallow (1 meter) graves, in council land adjacent to the mortuary in the town.

An eye witness who had just travelled from Nyamapanda said: ?Flea market operators who go and set up stalls from Harare are sharing accommodation with unburied corpses.? A commentator added that it seems as if ?Robert Mugabe is quite content to turn the country into a giant death camp.?

The former chairperson of the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) Mike Davies, speaking in his private capacity, said people would not be dying from cholera if there were adequate resources, but the continuing deaths are a symptom of the failure of the regime to address the basic social needs of the citizens.

Prevention of the disease is relatively easy with adequate water supplies and proper sanitation practices, but Zimbabwe has now become a breeding ground for this infectious disease. There is no clean water in most parts of the country, resulting in many desperate people scrounging for water from unprotected wells and streams, in spite of the cholera outbreak.

With the collapse of the health industry and most hospitals now being shut, many people are just dying at home, making it very difficult to come up with statistics. The government has also been downplaying the extent of the crisis. Furthermore the fact that there is still no government in place in Zimbabwe makes the situation even more abnormal.

On Wednesday the Herald newspaper could not hide the extent of the crisis. The paper wrote: ?The Harare City Council yesterday remained mum as cholera continued to take its toll. Yesterday afternoon The Herald witnessed two trucks ferrying bodies of cholera victims from Budiriro Polyclinic to Beatrice Road Infectious Diseases Hospital mortuary.?

A number of areas in the capital have been without water for several weeks and yet residents are still being forced to pay their rates. Some areas like Mabvuku and Tafara have gone for half a year without water.

Meanwhile a CHRA statement accuses the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) of gross incompetence, which has resulted in the cholera scourge that has claimed lives in Budiriro, Glenview, Glen Norah Dzivarasekwa and Chitungwiza.

?In the traditional fashion of the arm-twisting of state institutions for partisan and self gratification, the ZANU PF Government defied all reason and went ahead with the ZINWA takeover of water and sewer management from the local authorities in 2006. The decision has resulted in untold water inadequacies and subsequent disease outbreaks and deaths from cholera and other related diseases, in the light of the collapsed health sector,? said the statement.

However ZINWA blames the crisis on a lack of spare parts and foreign currency to buy chemicals needed to purify the water.

Davies says that until there is a legitimate government in the country, elected by the people, there will be no change in the situation. He also noted the failure of leadership in the opposition, to galvanise the anger from people who have now been reduced to an animal existence.

Davies said: ?This is an indictment of civil society. I think that we haven?t constructed possibilities that people can believe in, that we can deliver a change to the situation.?

SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Source: http://www.afriquenligne.fr/news/af...zimbabwe,-death-toll-rises-2008111716167.html

Cholera persists in Zimbabwe, death toll rises

Harare, Zimbabwe - Health authorities in Zimbabwe admitted Monday they have failed to bring a cholera outbreak in the capital, Harare, which has claimed 37 lives, under control amid a rising death toll. The disease broke out three weeks ago in Harare, and health authorities have been battling to contain it.

But city health director Stanley Mungofa admitted Monday the cholera outbreak in the city was getting worse and claiming more lives.

He said at least 37 people had died of the disease, but "there could have been (more) communal deaths.

"We have recorded 25 deaths at Beatrice Road Infectious Diseases Hospital. All the deaths have been in the first 24 hours of admission of which 70 per cent were in the first four hours of being brought to the hospital.

"A further 12 people have died at Budiriro Polyclinic since the outbreak of the disease on 25 October. There could have been communal deaths and the (Harare City) Council is still compiling figures."

The outbreak is widely blamed on consumption of unclean water, and has defied concerted efforts by health authorities in the last two weeks to contain it.

A breakdown in the provision of clean water and administration of health services in Harare, like elsewhere in Zimbabwe because of an economic crisis, is making it difficult to bring the cholera outbreak under control.

Harare - 17/11/2008

 

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Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...9366/Hundreds-die-of-cholera-in-Zimbabwe.html


Hundreds die of cholera in Zimbabwe
Hundreds of people are dying of cholera in Zimbabwe amid an epidemic that President Robert Mugabe is trying to cover up.

By Peta Thornycroft, Zimbabwe Correspondent
Last Updated: 6:21PM GMT 18 Nov 2008

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that dozens of people have died from the outbreak in the last two weeks alone.

With the country's infrastructure neglected for years by Mr Mugabe's government, large sections of Harare rely on standpipes and wells for water, increasing the risk of infection.

Most government medical staff downed what few tools they had last month to protest at the lack of medicines and equipment in state hospitals, leaving only only army doctors are available to treat the sick.

In Budiriro, a small, poverty-stricken township in the west of the capital, a policeman outside the local Polyclinic said more than 60 people had died in the last two weeks.

The perimeter fence was covered in plastic, preventing outsiders from looking in as many, including private doctors and some donors, accuse the government of grossly under-reporting cholera deaths. It says there have been 80 in the entire country.

A long-serving doctor in Harare said that the epidemic in the townships was the worst in living memory.

"It will get worse as the rains come," he said as the first summer showers drenched the city. "The laboratories are overwhelmed."

Medical assistance to sufferers - and unknown numbers are lying, dehydrated and dying at home - is provided by Unicef, M?decins Sans Fronti?res and the Zimbabwe National Army.

The humanitarian agencies providing medicines are also overwhelmed, according to western aid sources.

Linda Msimanga, 29, lives in one tiny room in Budiriro, and sat nursing her listless, mewling 14-month old daughter, Siyabonga, weeping as she showed the infant's pale, almost translucent hands.

Her husband died of cholera last week. "We didn't have water for three months and we dug a well," she said. "My husband started complaining about stomach ache, he started to have uncontrolled aiarrhoea which lasted the whole night, and in the morning we pushed him in a wheel barrow to the clinic. The army doctors said he had serious dehydration.

"He couldn't even clench his fist. They put him on a drip and took him by ambulance to the Infectious Diseases Hospital. The service there was very slow, and we took him to a private hospital.

"When we got there he had fainted, and they gave him oxygen and two more drips, but when the doctor attended to him, they pronounced him dead."

Siyabonga was not admitted to the local clinic as it does not treat children and she is being home nursed with some rehydration tablets.

Nearby, Never Tafireyi, 55, unemployed, said he also dug a well in his garden and believes it was this water which killed his wife.

Credia, 45, was shunted by delayed ambulances from the clinic, to the state's main hospital, Parirenyatwa in central Harare, which was closed, and finally to the Infections Diseases Hospital where she died three days later.

The Combined Harare Residents' Association yesterday said the state has "gagged" city health centres to downplay the epidemic.

More than 50 patients had been queuing for treatment at the Infectious Diseases Hospital and within the hour it monitored activity, five adults and one child had died there, it said.

Government doctors at the Parirenyatwa are demanding to be paid in foreign currency, as most retail prices are quoted in US dollars, and this week the University of Zimbabwe closed the country's only medical school, for the first time since it opened during the Rhodesian era.

All students in the last three years have been told to go home until "such time when constraints have been addressed

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g7ik0r0b9ihTwOyWT18PBVxmRzFA

US ambassador says 294 dead from cholera in Zimbabwe

WASHINGTON (AFP) ? The US ambassador to Harare, James McGee, said Thursday that a total of 294 people have been confirmed dead from cholera in Zimbabwe, amid some 1,200 cases of the water-borne disease.

"The water situation, sanitation situation has gone through the ceiling," McGee told reporters in Washington via a satellite hookup from Harare.

"There are over 1,200 confirmed cases of cholera and another 2,500 unconfirmed cases of cholera," McGee said, adding that the death toll had risen to 294, which is higher than the official toll.

Officials in Harare said the outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe over the last month has now claimed at least 90 lives, including three deaths of Zimbabweans across the border in South Africa.

At least 37 people have died in Beitbridge, a town on the border with South Africa, Health Minister David Parirenyatwa said on national radio.

Three Zimbabweans have died across the border in the South African town of Musina, officials there said.

Another 37 people have died in the capital Harare, while a new outbreak in the central town of Gweru has killed 13 people, state media said Thursday.

Doctors Without Borders warned on Tuesday that 1.4 million people are at risk of the disease in Harare alone, and cases of cholera have been detected as far away as Durban, on South Africa's southeastern coast.

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7742762.stm

Cholera outbreak strikes Zimbabwe

Nearly 300 people have died in Zimbabwe in recent weeks in a cholera outbreak which has hit about 6,000 people, the World Health Organization reports.

The UN body predicted the water-borne disease would continue to spread because of poor sanitation in the impoverished country's urban areas.

Many hospitals have shut down and most towns suffer from poor water supply, broken sewers and uncollected waste.

An outbreak of cholera on this scale is rare in Zimbabwe, correspondents say.
While the disease is endemic in Zimbabwe, it seems this will be the worst outbreak since 2000, Michel Van Herp of the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) told the BBC.

The WHO said that tackling the problem would be difficult because of the local shortage of drugs, medical supplies and health professionals, and the start of the rainy season was "also of concern".

"The outbreak is likely to continue as the water and sanitation situation is worsening, with severe shortages of potable water, sewage and waste disposal problems reported in most of the populated areas," a WHO statement said.

In Geneva, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs specified that cholera had spread to all of Zimbabwe's provinces.

It and the WHO put the total number of suspected cholera as of 18 November at 6,072 with 294 deaths.

'Unprecedented'

Zimbabwe's own government has reported fewer deaths, putting the figure at 90, but Health Minister David Parirenyatwa said this week that his ministry was "battling to control unprecedented... outbreaks".

He identified Budiriro, a suburb of the capital Harare, as "the epicentre of the disease", adding that the current wave of cholera had begun in September in Chitungwiza, a satellite town south of Harare.

Admitting the situation in government hospitals was "bad", he told the Herald newspaper he hoped food would soon be made available under the Reserve Bank's programme to ensure Zimbabweans had basic commodities.

The country's Association of Doctors for Human Rights highlighted the dire state of a health service once widely admired in Africa.

"Our health delivery system, previously the envy of many developing countries, is now teetering on the verge of virtual collapse," it said.

"Sick people in need of medical attention are being turned away from Zimbabwe's hospitals and clinics."
Harare's Central Hospital officially closed down last week and now hardly a doctor or nurse is in sight, the BBC's Brian Hungwe reports from the city.

Cholera-sufferers would be "coming to hospital to die because there is nobody to care for anyone", said Dr Malvern Nyamutora, vice-chairman of the Junior Doctors' Association.

"Cholera is treatable, just fluids and tetracycline [an anti-biotic] is enough, but if you get people dying of this diarrhoea - that explains the state of the health crisis," he added.

 

[Snowy Owl]

SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE: The politics of cholera

SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE: The politics of cholera

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width=478><TBODY><TR><TD>SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE

The politics of cholera

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=81616

JOHANNESBURG, 21 November 2008 (IRIN)​

The number of people being treated for cholera in the northern town of Musina, near South Africa's border with Zimbabwe, is falling, but the situation remains serious.

"It's difficult to say the situation is under control, as it is difficult to trace the patients once they are released; we don't know where they go, we don't know whether they take risks," John Shiburi, a South African Red Cross Society official in Musina, told IRIN.

​

According to health workers, nine people are still in hospital in Musina, being treated for cholera-like symptoms. Earlier this week the figure was 14, with the patients apparently all from Zimbabwe, where an epidemic is raging.

The South African government announced on 20 November that it was ready to help Zimbabwe "address the cholera outbreak", and that discussions were underway with the UN World Health Organisation and the regional Southern African Development Community.

The collapse of water and sewerage services in Zimbabwe, worsened by uncollected refuse and the start of the rainy season, have helped the spread of the waterborne disease. Humanitarian officials reported a total of 2,893 people were infected with cholera between the beginning of August and mid-November, with at least 115 deaths.

A hard-hitting South Africa cabinet statement linked Zimbabwe's cholera crisis to the stalled formation of a government of national unity between President Robert Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, saying the deadlock was exacerbating the country's humanitarian and economic crisis.

"The reported outbreak of cholera in parts of that country is a clear indication that ordinary Zimbabweans are the true victims of their leaders' lack of political will and failure to demonstrate seriousness to resolve the political impasse," the statement noted.

Shiburi said that until the emergency in Zimbabwe was resolved, where people were suffering an inflation rate of 231 million percent and shortages of almost every basic item, the flow of Zimbabwean migrants into South Africa would not halt.

An estimated three million Zimbabweans, in a population of less than 12 million, have left the country, many crossing the border into South Africa, the regional economic powerhouse.

"We've got two challenges: the outbreak of cholera, and the issue of immigration. That in itself [migration] is a challenge, but the cholera outbreak has worsened the problem. We have [migrants here] who don't have shelter, who don't have accommodation," Shiburi noted.

He added that some Zimbabweans arriving without documentation were avoiding Musina and the authorities and "going straight to Jo'burg", South Africa's economic hub, to look for work.

oa/he​

</TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2>
Theme(s): (IRIN) Aid Policy, (IRIN) Economy, (IRIN) Governance, (IRIN) Health & Nutrition, (IRIN) Water & Sanitation
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

 

[Snowy Owl]

Re: SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE: The politics of cholera

Re: SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE: The politics of cholera

WHO: 294 deaths in Zimbabwe cholera outbreak

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jYaMdvfd4B2f0SL_hy9UM7heD0-QD94JETBG0

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)​

The World Health Organization said Friday that 294 people have died from a cholera outbreak exacerbated by the country's collapsing health care system.​

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said that a total 6,072 cases had been reported between the start of August and Nov. 18, with an upsurge in cases in the past two weeks.

A lack of clean water and poorly maintained sewage systems have allowed the waterborne intestinal disease to thrive. Zimbabwe's deepening political and economic crisis has crippled the country's health system.​

The U.N health body warned that with the start of the rainy season, the outbreak was likely to continue as the water and sanitation situation is worsening. Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, has warned that 1.4 million people are at risk.​

Doctors in Zimbabwe earlier demonstrated against the country's collapsing health care system and blamed the government for the disease's spread.

The cholera outbreak has caused a crisis in hospitals in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, and also has reached over the border into neighboring South Africa.

A WHO statement issued in Geneva, Switzerland, said it was working with the government and other international aid groups to try to control the epidemic.

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

SOurce: http://www.thezimbabwestandard.com/local/19268-government-admits-cholera-killed-hundreds.html

Gvt Admits Cholera Killed Hundreds
Saturday, 22 November 2008 20:09

FOR the first time since The Standard reported that officials were covering up the magnitude of cholera deaths, government yesterday admitted the epidemic had claimed more people than officials were prepared to reveal.
Health and Child Welfare Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa (pictured) said 281 people had succumbed to cholera during the period beginning September until last Friday.
Parirenyatwa revealed the figure to The Standard after the World Health Organisation announced that between August and last Tuesday, 294 had died as a result of cholera.
In a statement released from Geneva, WHO said 6 072 cases had been reported countrywide during the same period.
The government had tried to downplay the cholera outbreak insisting that less than 40 people had died in Harare, the epicentre of the epidemic.
But Parirenyatwa, who has persistently told state media that government had brought the epidemic ?under control?, yesterday said he was ?scared? by the extent of the outbreak.
?The official figures from the Ministry for the period between September and Friday night is 281 for the whole of Zimbabwe,? he said. ?We cannot be able to control cholera as long as there is no water.
?We are concerned about the unavailability of water and as the minister responsible for Health I am very scared, especially during this rainy season.?
Government officials have consistently put the death toll at less than 100 despite admissions that up to 40 people died in Beitbridge alone inside a week.
Who spokeswoman, Fadela Chaib, said there had been an upsurge in reported cholera cases during the past fortnight.
The United Nations body warned that with the start of the rainy season, the outbreak was likely to continue as the water and sanitation situation was worsening.
Doctors without Borders has warned that 1,4 million people were at risk of contracting the disease.
Collapsing sewer infrastructure and poor sanitation in urban areas have been blamed for the cholera outbreak.
Doctors and donors say the country?s collapsing health sector was failing to cope with the number of people in need of urgent treatment, resulting in more deaths.
Gweru, Zvishavane and Kadoma also recorded fresh cases last week.
The highly contagious disease also spread to Bulawayo, where it has claimed two lives.
The governor for Bulawayo, Cain Mathema, said by Friday the epidemic had reached Makokoba, Emakhandeni, Pumula and Nkulumane suburbs in the country?s second most populous city.
Cholera can be treated easily with a sugar and salt solution to replace lost body fluids.
Symptoms include watery diarrhoea and vomiting, which leads to loss of large amounts of body fluids.

By Sandra Mandizvidza

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Source: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81640

ZIMBABWE: Woes pile up as anthrax hits the south

BULAWAYO, 24 November 2008 (IRIN) - As Zimbabwe battles a nationwide cholera outbreak that has so far killed around 300 people, a surge in anthrax has also hit the south of the country, claiming the lives of villagers and their livestock.

Matabeleland North provincial medical director, Dr Gibson Mhlanga, confirmed the deaths of two people from anthrax, but a report in the official The Chronicle newspaper said six had died and over 200 cattle had been wiped out in the province's Dongamuzi area near Lupane, 120km north of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city.

The government dispatched its disaster management Civil Protection Unit (CPU) to Lupane last week to work with the Veterinary Services Department to vaccinate affected cattle in a bid to contain the disease.

Anthrax will further strain Zimbabwe's crumbling health delivery system, which has failed to contain a cholera outbreak that has spread to all 10 of its provinces. The waterborne disease has officially killed 294 people out of a total of 6,072 cases.

Medical officials in Lupane said the people who had succumbed to anthrax over the past week had eaten meat from infected cattle; several other villagers in the district have been hospitalised.

Villagers in the Lupane area who spoke to IRIN said they had lost a considerable number of livestock to the rapid onset infection, which is hard to detect in its early stages.

"My entire kraal was almost wiped out and the few cattle that I have remaining have been vaccinated [but] I am not sure whether the seven remaining cattle I have left will not die also," said Matthew Ncube, 57, who had already lost 35 of his animals.

Ephraim Moyo pointed out that the risk of human infection was rising with the approach of the festive season. "People eat a lot of meat, and the problem is that people in the village do not throw away cattle that die ... they eat the meat."

On its way

Anthrax infection usually results from coming into contact with the spores of the bacterium, infecting the skin, or inhaling them, or by eating infected meat; it does not spread from person to person.

The outbreak is causing serious concern in Bulawayo, where most people buy their meat from unlicensed butcheries that source the animals from rural areas like Lupane.

"Ever since the outbreak of anthrax I have not been buying meat from the vendors I normally buy from, as the meat that they bring from rural areas is not inspected," said Bulawayo resident Ndabezinhle Sibanda.

Symptoms of intestinal anthrax include severe abdominal pain, vomiting, severe diarrhoea, and bleeding from the digestive tract. Pulmonary anthrax, the most dangerous form of the disease, can rapidly turn into severe pneumonia. If anthrax is caught early, it is almost always successfully treated with antibiotics.

ld/oa/he

 

[Snowy Owl]

Jimmy Carter says Zimbabwe crisis is 'much worse' than imagined

Jimmy Carter says Zimbabwe crisis is 'much worse' than imagined

Jimmy Carter says Zimbabwe crisis is 'much worse' than imagined

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mugabe25-2008nov25,0,7756381.story​

Email Picture

Aaron Ufumeli / European Pressphoto Agency​

A girl scavenges in a rubbish heap in Chitungwiza, a town on the outskirts of Harare, the capital. An estimated 4.9 million people in Zimbabwe are desperately in need of food aid, and there is said to be no seed for planting.​

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Carter, part of a delegation that includes former U.N. chief Kofi Annan and which was denied access to Zimbabwe, says Robert Mugabe continues to deny his nation food and other aid.[/COLOR]​

[COLOR=#999999 !important]

By Robyn Dixon
November 25, 2008 [/COLOR]​

Reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa

Former President Jimmy Carter on Monday said Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis was far worse than he could have imagined and expressed dismay that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his government refused to acknowledge the problem even existed.
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"The entire basic structure in education, healthcare, feeding people, social services and sanitation has broken down," Carter said at a news conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. "These are all indications that the crisis in Zimbabwe is much greater, much worse than we had ever imagined."

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Carter was part of a delegation denied entry into Zimbabwe last week to assess the crisis. The delegation also included U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Gra?a Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela.

An estimated 4.9 million people in Zimbabwe are desperately in need of food aid and 300 have died in a cholera epidemic.

The delegates are from a group of prominent public figures known as The Elders, set up by Mandela to address serious crises around the world.

Instead of traveling to Zimbabwe, they held meetings in neighboring South Africa with Zimbabwean refugees and opposition leaders, South African government officials, diplomats, humanitarian agencies and nongovernmental organizations.

Citing those briefings, Carter said Mugabe and his government had refused to meet with the United Nations and charitable organizations as well as ambassadors from the major donor countries for the last year.

"I think it's the established policy of the Mugabe government that there's no crisis in Zimbabwe," he said.

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Carter said this year's planting season had been squandered because there was no seed available. The earliest possible harvest now is April 2010; farmers would need to be planting now to catch the rains for next spring's harvest. "Meanwhile people are suffering from lack of food, which is the most critical need at this time."

He said none of the four main hospitals in Zimbabwe was working and only 20% of children were attending school, compared with 80% last year. The main reason was that teachers stopped showing up because salaries, about $1 a month, did not even cover their transportation costs.

South African President Kgalema Motlanthe said the crisis was so serious that Zimbabwe could implode and collapse. He said the root cause was the lack of a legitimate government.

Mugabe, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the leader of a small opposition group, Arthur Mutambara, agreed in September to share power following disputed elections, but soon after, Mugabe allocated the most powerful Cabinet jobs to his party, ZANU-PF. South African leaders have been putting intense pressure on Tsvangirai's party to accept those appointments, which would leave the Zimbabwean leader in control of the military and intelligence services while sharing police with the opposition.

Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, argues that it would not be able to solve the humanitarian crisis with Mugabe and his security forces still dominating the nation.

Annan said regional leaders, who belong to the Southern African Development Community, had been slow to act as the crisis unfolded, particularly after African observers condemned elections in June.

But he also ratcheted up the pressure on Tsvangirai, saying that if Zimbabwe's leaders put the interests of the people first, they'd draw the right conclusions on what was most important.

"We have indicated to [the opposition leaders] that the most important issue is the lives and suffering of the people and that must be paramount," Annan said. "I'm sure we would have given the same message to President Mugabe if we'd met him."

Tsvangirai's spokesman, George Sibotshiwe, said it was wrong to blame the MDC for Zimbabwe's crisis.

"The person who's responsible for the mess is Robert Mugabe," he said. "He's been in power for 28 years."

"We have to approach the problem in a sober and realistic way with due consideration of the long term," he added.

"If the MDC rushes into government and they're unable to provide solutions, the humanitarian situation will get worse."

Dixon is a Times staff write​

 

[Snowy Owl]

Re: Jimmy Carter says Zimbabwe crisis is 'much worse' than imagined

Re: Jimmy Carter says Zimbabwe crisis is 'much worse' than imagined

Over 1000 Zim Cholera patients in South African hospitals
Cr?dit BuaNews Online

Compiled by the Government Communication and Information System
Date: 25 Nov 2008
​

Johannesburg - More than 1 000 Zimbabwean cholera patients have been treated at two South African hospitals - 1 000 in Beitbridge hospital and 168 at Musina hospital, South African health officials said Monday.

"As at Sunday, our hospital in Musina had received a total of 168 cholera patients since the outbreak of the disease on 15 November, three of whom have died," Musina Municipality Health Department spokesperson Phuti Seloba told the media, adding that 27 patients were currently in the hospital.

Mr Seloba said South African and Zimbabwean health officials met at the weekend to map out a strategy to tackle the cholera outbreak that is wreaking havoc in crisis-ravaged Zimbabwe and fast spreading into South Africa's northernmost province.

"We had a meeting on Sunday with health officials from Zimbabwe. It was a very fruitful meeting. We did an assessment of Zimbabwe's health needs to enable us to tackle the problem.

"During the meeting, held in the Zimbabwean border town of Beitbridge, we all realised that the problem is neither Zimbabwean nor South African. This is our common problem and we need to solve it jointly. We need to look at the health gaps and find a way to fill them by tackling the source of the problem," Mr Seloba said.

Zimbabwe - which is facing a serious humanitarian crisis with more than half of the population facing starvation and a world record inflation of more than 231 million percent - has been battling to contain an outbreak of cholera that started in September and, according to the World Health Organisation, has since claimed 294 lives.

Compounding the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe is the fact that the country's once admired health system has totally collapsed while doctors and nurses are grossly underpaid because the government does not have money. - BuaNews-NNN

 

[Snowy Owl]

Re: Jimmy Carter says Zimbabwe crisis is 'much worse' than imagined

Re: Jimmy Carter says Zimbabwe crisis is 'much worse' than imagined

Cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe kills 53 more, infects 1,600: UN

25/11/2008 18h16

A man pushes his relative in a wheelbarrow to a Cholera Polyclinic
©AFP - Desmond Kwande

GENEVA (AFP) - Fifty-three more cholera deaths were recorded in Zimbabwe in a single day along with 1,600 new cases, the United Nations said Tuesday, putting the death toll since August at 366 and the number of cases at 8,887.

The outbreak was also taking on a "regional dimension," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned, pointing to reports from South Africa's health ministry of suspected cholera cases in Botswana.

"The cholera outbreak is not yet under control. Reported cases have reached 8,887, with 366 deaths as at 25 November. This is an increase of 1,604 cases and 53 more deaths from the previous day," said OCHA.

It said the higher death toll was due mainly to more fatalities reported from Beitbridge, which borders South Africa.

Over the weekend, South African and Zimbabwean health officials met to tackle the cholera outbreak which has also claimed lives in South Africa.

South Africa's health officials said the hospital in Musina, a South African town near the Zimbabwe border, has dealt with 168 patients, three of whom have died.

http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/newsmlmmd.831c2d9840560ee9373a4045f1a3ceaf.1f1.html

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=aPGSPi4kWJzs&refer=africa

Zimbabwe Says Cholera Outbreak ?Under Control,? No Emergency

By Brian Latham

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwe?s government won?t declare the country?s cholera epidemic a national emergency because the disease is under control, deputy Health Minister Edwin Maguti said, blaming the outbreak on Western sanctions.

?We now have the situation under control and there is no need to declare a national disaster,? Maguti said by phone today from Harare, the capital. ?Western governments must like what they see with the cholera outbreak because it is their illegal sanctions that caused it.?

At least 366 people have died and 8,887 people have been infected with cholera since the first cases of the disease were reported in Harare in September, according to the Web site of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Oxfam, the Oxford, England-based charity, yesterday urged President Robert Mugabe?s government to declare a national health emergency.

Cholera, mainly spread through contaminated water and food and poor sanitation, causes severe diarrhea and vomiting that can lead to death. As many as 1.4 million people are in danger of contracting the disease in Harare, Medecins Sans Frontieres, the Geneva-based medical charity known as Doctors Without Borders, said on Nov. 19.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Latham via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: November 26, 2008 05:47 EST

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200811270183.html

Zimbabwe: At Least 3000 Feared Dead From Cholera Epidemic

SW Radio Africa (London)
26 November 2008
Posted to the web 27 November 2008
Lance Guma

Over 3000 people are feared to have died so far from a severe cholera epidemic plaguing the country. With Mugabe's regime keeping a tight lid on the number of people who have succumbed to the illness, the actual number could be much higher. Our Harare correspondent Simon Muchemwa told Newsreel the figure of 3000 dead could most likely be for Harare alone. He said most people did not bother to register the deaths of their relatives and this provided an added challenge to accurate record keeping.

Several Harare suburbs are recording as many as 10 deaths a day. Making the situation worse is that even people suffering from malaria are being dumped in cholera clinics, where they end up contracting the disease. This is because some of the symptoms between the two diseases are so similar. Differentiating them is proving difficult under the circumstances of a collapsed health system.

The World Health Organization says over 8000 people have been infected by the disease. Insiders however say local authorities, police and Home Affairs officials have been warned against divulging the real figures. With erratic water supplies in most cities, coupled with the lack of treatment chemicals, the water borne cholera has spread easily.

While the population battles the tragic realities of the disease the regime continues playing politics. The government on Wednesday announced it would not declare the outbreak a national emergency, claiming it had the disease 'under control'. Deputy Health Minister Edwin Mugutu blamed the west for the outbreak saying 'Western governments must like what they see with the cholera outbreak because it is their illegal sanctions that caused it.'

His remarks were immediately slammed by critics who blame the government's failed policies for an economic crisis that has led to the collapse of just about everything, including the health system. The west has also continued to fund humanitarian aid programmes to the country. Critics also point to the irony of Muguti's argument, in that it is actually government which has been banning or interfering with humanitarian work in the country.

Meanwhile the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition reports that 9 people have died of cholera since Monday in Gweru's high density suburb of Mkoba. The group says at least 7 prisoners died from the disease at Harare's Remand Prison according to sources there.

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

ZIMBABWE: Cholera feeds off a perfect storm [IRIN]

ZIMBABWE: Cholera feeds off a perfect storm

HARARE, 27 November 2008 (IRIN) -

All but one of Zimbabwe's ten provinces have reported fatalities as a result of a cholera epidemic sweeping the country, according to the UN.


The rapid spread of the waterborne disease is attributed to a confluence of events that have created the perfect storm, in which a disease described by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as "easily treatable", is thriving.

The collapse of municipal services, such as potable water, refuse collection and sanitation in the past few years, a health service hamstrung by an annual inflation rate that the government has estimated at 231 million percent, and the onset of the rainy season, have all conspired to officially kill about 300 people and infect thousands more.

The eastern province of Manicaland is so far the only place not to have recorded any official cholera deaths.

"The cholera outbreak has taken a national dimension. Newer outbreaks are reported from all the provinces," said a situational report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"The spatial distribution of outbreaks will most likely continue to expand, as well as the number of people infected as the water and sanitation [services] worsen, with severe water shortages, sewage and waste disposal problems reported in most densely populated areas. The starting of the rains further raises alarm levels," the report said.

Warnings by the UN and other relief agencies that Zimbabwe was facing a humanitarian crisis, on top of acute food shortages - expected to peak in the first quarter of 2009, when nearly half the country's 12 million population will require emergency food aid - were dismissed by President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF government.

"The situation is under control," Deputy Health Minister Edwin Muguti told an international news agency on 27 November, although the government was reportedly appealing to regional governments for body bags.

Efforts to contain the spread of the disease across international borders have failed, with victims seeking assistance from neighbouring countries, particularly the continent's economic powerhouse, South Africa.

Neighbouring countries feel the effects
About 1,000 victims have received rehydration treatment at the South African border post of Beitbridge in recent weeks, according to local reports. Barbara Hogan, South Africa's health minister, told local media on 26 November that an emergency medical response team, including nurses, epidemiologists and medical supplies, had been sent to the Zimbabwe border.

"Given the scale of the outbreak, the weakened health system in Zimbabwe and the extent of the cross-border movement of people ... all aspects or our interventions need to be scaled up, and a renewed sense of urgency [is required] to deal with this outbreak," Hogan told a press briefing in Pretoria.

She dismissed claims by Zimbabwean authorities that the cholera situation was under control, as there was "no recognised government".

Zambian authorities have put medical services in Southern Province, which borders Zimbabwe, on high alert, health ministry spokesman Canicius Banda told IRIN, although there have been no recorded incidents of cholera in the province.

"We are not leaving anything to chance. We are screening all Zimbabwean nationals crossing into Zambia and, should anyone be found with cholera, our health workers will treat them," Banda said.

"We have health workers at all the three border posts [with Zimbabwe] ... our health workers are very much alert in case of any possible [cholera] outbreak," he said. "All the [10] districts in the province have epidemic preparedness committees which run all year round; these have also been put on alert."

Zambia shares three border posts with its southern neighbour at Chirundu, Kariba and Kazungula, in the country's tourism capital, Livingstone.

"We are also carrying out random inspections of all foodstuffs, such as meat at the market places, to ensure that the products sold are of high standards," Banda said.

Since the onset of the rainy season, Zambia has recorded about 1,000 cholera cases in its northern regions and the capital, Lusaka; there have been nine confirmed fatalities.

The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR), which advocates the right to care and protection from abuse, told media organisations on 26 November that the country's cholera death toll was probably much greater as a consequence of the collapse of health services, because many hundreds of deaths were not recorded when people died in their homes.

One in ten fatality rate
ZADHR Chairman Dr Douglas Gwadziro said figures "are pointing towards a 10 percent death rate of those that have been affected by cholera", although the waterborne intestinal infection causing acute diarrhoea and vomiting, which can cause death from dehydration within 24 hours, could be easily treated with dehydration salts.

''Figures are pointing towards a 10 percent death rate of those that have been affected by cholera''

According to the state-controlled daily newspaper, The Herald, China had pledged to supply US$500,000 worth of cholera vaccines "as soon as consultations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were complete.

"However, when the vaccines arrive, distribution and administration may be complicated by industrial action in the health services. Health workers have defied a government order to return to work, and said they would only comply with government demands in 2009 if concerns about their remuneration were addressed.

Nurses are demanding better salaries to cope with hyperinflation estimated by independent economists to be billions of percent annually, and exemption from the Z$500,000 (US$0.25) daily maximum cash withdrawal from banks because they are "essential" personnel.

The average one-way commuter fare in the capital, Harare, is about Z$1 million (US$0.50), if there is cash available.

Doctors working in the public health services are also refusing to return to work unless the government pegs their salary to a monthly equivalent of US$2,500.

Lovemore Matombo, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the country's largest union federation, said the growing trend of government to sanction the use of foreign currency by retail outlets prejudiced both government employees and other workers, although less than 20 percent of people were employed in the formal economy.

"It does not make sense for the government to say traders can sell commodities in foreign currency, while it pays its workers in local currency which they cannot get from the bank," Matombo told IRIN.

"Calls by workers that they should be paid in foreign currency are legitimate because almost all outlets are providing services using the US dollar denomination," he said.

"If the government acknowledges that its currency is useless by allowing traders to sell in US dollars, why does it want the workers to receive the useless and worthless local currency?"

dd/nm/go/he
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<cite cite="http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=81699">IRIN Africa | Southern Africa | Zimbabwe | ZIMBABWE: Cholera feeds off a perfect storm | Governance Health & Nutrition Water & Sanitation | News Item</cite>

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Re: Zimbabwe: Clean water disaster looms

Source: http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Insight/Article.aspx?id=895076

60000 new infections forecast in disease crisis
Rowan Philp: Harare Published:Nov 30, 2008

The death toll in Zimbabwe?s cholera epidemic will soar, according to NGOs which, after upgrading their models, now expect 60000 infections by March.

And, as Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe continues to refuse to declare a national emergency, at least one new study predicts that as many as 10000 could die.

So far, 412 deaths and 9908 infections have been officially recorded by the World Health Organisation, since cholera first appeared near Harare in August.

Despite claims from the Mugabe government that cholera deaths had already peaked, senior NGO officials told the Sunday Times that heavy December rains, combined with low nutrition levels and a complete breakdown of government services, would mean a full-scale humanitarian disaster will strike in the months to come.

One key disaster-response official, who asked not to be identified for fear of government obstruction, said: ?It will certainly get a lot worse, in terms of prevalence. We have now adopted 60000 as the total cases we can expect. The only question is what the case fatality rate will be ? something which is normally around 1%, but which will be much higher here. Because MSF (M?decins Sans Fronti?res ? Doctors Without Borders) has been working hard, the institutional fatality rate (in the treatment centres) at the moment is down to 4%, which would mean (2400 deaths). But, when we factor in community deaths, the lack of government response and the rains, I believe we will end up close to the historical rate here, which is 17%. So I fear around 10000 deaths by the end of March.?

He also warned that the epidemic would spread to South Africa ?without a doubt? if the borders were not closed.

He said the WHO had also projected 60000 infections in their own new internal model.

Unicef, MSF, German Agro Action and the WHO are leading the response to the crisis in the absence of any substantive government response, and have set up 36 cholera treatment centres around the country.

On Friday, the Red Cross said it was issuing food to hospital staff members, who have gone unpaid for at least 47 days, so they could continue to assist in the clinics.

This week, there were desperate scenes in the hardest hit township of Budiriro, where 400 new cholera cases arrived at the NGO-run treatment centre every day.

One man wearing a blue shirt was ferried into the clinic in a wheelbarrow; his head dangling off the side.

A newly married 28-year-old woman, discharged from the camp due to overcrowding, said: ?It was terrible in there. People were sweeping their (faeces) aside on their beds with their own hands so they did not have to lie in it; there was no one to help. There were also not enough stands for the drips, so sick people or their relatives had to hold the drips up with their arms.?

On Friday, the Chinese government announced that it was rushing R5- million worth of cholera vaccines to Zimbabwe to help prevent new infections.

However, Dr Greg Powell, chairman of the Child Protection Society, and a member of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, said: ?The problem is that vaccines don?t make a difference in a case like this, so unless the Chinese have a new kind of vaccine, I see no new hope there. The Centres for Disease Control states that the use of vaccines in epidemic situations is useless. The main weapon is water, and the complete collapse in the water system and sewer system means the crisis will inevitably deepen. On top of that, the government has failed even to try to intervene ? it really doesn?t care.?