HEAVY rains, rotting vegetation have increased the possibility of cholera reaching Matabeleland, and even Bulawayo, the city’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr EF Watson, said yesterday.
“Cholera is the one truly water-borne disease,” Dr Watson said. With rivers running all over Rhodesia, the infection could spread into Matabeleland’s rural areas.
From there it could be brought to Bulawayo by campers or picknickers visiting infected areas.
“The chances of cholera spreading in Bulawayo, even if the disease was brought back by a camper or picnicker, are small, but it is a possibility,” he said.
Infected areas of Rhodesia were quarantined, but it was impossible to stop the movement of people completely.
“This is how it spreads: by carriers contaminating water supplies. Where people are drinking from rivers chances of infection are greater.”
If there were no contact through water, there would be no spread of cholera.
People should not drink raw water in rural areas. Campers should take city water with them, or boil rural water before drinking it.
He said that rotting vegetation was an indirect hazard. “Flies, are breeding in all sorts of places which in normal times would be too dry. And flies settle on infected human faeces, and then on food.”
Cholera has been diagnosed in the Mutema and Muwushu Tribal Trust Lands, the Ministry of Information said yesterday. Mutema, where there are two cases, is now a quarantined area and Muwushu, one case, becomes a quarantined area today.
LESSONS FOR TODAY
Zimbabwe has been fighting a protracted cholera outbreak since early 2023. Some SADC countries are also fighting the epidemic.
By January 2024, a cumulative number of cases registered nationwide was 20 446, and 452 cholera deaths.
Fighting the cholera outbreak should be a collective responsibility, where people join hands in order to eradicate the disease. The environment should always be clean. Apart from the Ministry of Health and Child Care and their partners; and, local authorities, all citizens should participate in making sure that the cholera epidemic is contained and should never recur.
This week, the Ministry of Health and Child Care with assistance from the UNICEF Health Resilience Fund, started a nationwide oral cholera vaccination (OCV) where they hope to administer the vaccine to all affected people.
Apart from the OCV campaign, the other interventions include Operation Chenesa Harare – an initiative that should be extended to all provinces; the supply of clean water through the sinking of boreholes in urban and rural areas. However, these are short-term measures. People should strive towards hygienic lifestyles.
