Dr. Parirenyatwa: Cholera epidemic nearly tamed

Monday, 01 December 2008 01:24 AFP Our Town - News

Zimbabwe's health minister insisted Sunday that the country's crumbling medical system was taking all necessary measures to combat a cholera epidemic, even as more than 1,000 new cases were reported.

Health minister David Parirenyatwa said 425 people had died and a total of 11,071 suspected cases had been reported nationwide since the current outbreak began in August.

The last estimate from the United Nations on Friday had put the toll at around 9,900 cases.

Parirenyatwa said the health services were trying to contain the disease's alarming spread, but warned that already poor sanitation was likely to worsen with the onset of the rainy season.

"What I am afraid of is that now that the rainy season has come, all the faeces lying in the bushes will be washed into shallow wells and contaminate the water," Parirenyatwa told the government mouthpiece Sunday Mail newspaper.

"Management of water and sanitation is primary to the cholera problem," he added. He emphasised the need for clean water, a proper sewage system and refuse collection.

While cholera has long posed a sporadic problem in rural Zimbabwe, the current epidemic is hitting the nation's cities.

The movement of people between cities is making the disease even harder to contain since it first broke out in the populous neighbourhood of Budiriro in the capital, the minister said.

Cholera is a highly contagious but treatable disease that causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting that can kill a patient.

The disease is easily prevented by washing hands, cleaning foods, and keeping drinking water away from sewage.

But Zimbabwe's dilapidated infrastructure has made clean water a luxury, with many people relying on shallow wells and latrines in their yards.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has accused the government of under-reporting the deaths, saying Friday that he believed more than 500 people had died and half a million were affected.

Douglas Gwatidzo, chairman of Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights, said his group estimated the death toll had topped 800.

"Determining the exact number of people who have died of cholera could be very difficult because of information blackout that characterised the early days of the epidemic," he told the privately owned Standard newspaper.

Parirenyatwa insisted that the government was issuing accurate figures, telling the paper that the ministry was "working tirelessly to control and manage the situation.

"I phone all the country's 10 provinces every day to get the correct figures from professional doctors who have no reason to lie," he said.

A group of lawyers warned that the cholera epidemic stemmed from an unprecedented environmental crisis caused by the breakdown in basic sanitation.

"Our reading of the situation is that this is not only an environmental and health crisis of unprecedented levels, but also a serious governance crisis," the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association said in a statement.

"Sadly, the hospitals have no drugs or nurses and doctors to attend to these people" who catch the disease, it added.

Zimbabwe's economy has collapsed under the weight of the world's highest inflation rate, last estimated at 231 million percent in July but believed to be much higher.

Once a food exporter, nearly half the population needs international food aid, while 80 percent of Zimbabweans are living in poverty.

Hopes for easing the humanitarian crisis have dimmed as President Robert Mugabe and Tsvangirai have been locked in a protracted dispute over how to form a unity government after controversial elections earlier this year.