20 February 2008
Maputo — The European NGO Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors Without Borders) claimed this week that, since the onset of the floods in the Zambezi valley in December, it has supported 15,000 families, affected by the flooding, in Tete and Zambezia provinces.
According to an MSF press release, received by AIM on Wednesday, the organisation has so far distributed 8,000 mosquito nets, 3,477 tarpaulins for building temporary shelters, and 1,170 blankets.
A cholera outbreak in some of these areas has led to a change in the pattern of assistance given by MSF, focusing on medical assistance and health monitoring.
The outbreak called for greater supplies of clean drinking water in three cholera treatment centres, where about 450 people, from resettlement centres in the Tete district of Mutarara, have already been treated. The outbreak has so far resulted in eight deaths.
MSF says that hygiene conditions in the resettlement centres are very poor due in particular to poor water supply. The organization has been working to minimise the shortage of clean water, by installing six tanks in four resettlement areas.
Basic sanitation also needs to be improved, and 707 latrines (out of a target of 1,081) have been built. MSF wants the resettlement centres to possess at least one latrine for every five families.
Guaranteeing food supplies to all the flood victims remains one of the major difficulties. Cited in the release, the MSF field coordinator in the Zambezia district of Mopeia, Elias Assane said "shortage of food is the main problem. The level of the waters has fallen which means that many families want to return top the dangerous areas".
Some people were trying to recover something from their crops "due to the weakness of support in this crucial area".
"The creation of conditions and incentives to guarantee that people remain in the resettlement centres are imperative to ensure that they do not return to the areas of risk", argue MSF.
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