Published by the government of Zimbabwe
4 August 2008
Harare — HARARE has been hit by an outbreak of diarrhoea, with the eastern suburbs - where there has been no water for almost a month following the failure by Zinwa to provide supplies in parts of the city owing to chemical shortages, power cuts and increased demand -- worst affected.
City health services department director Dr Stanley Mungofa confirmed the outbreak but could not be drawn to give the number of cases reported so far.
"The city is currently experiencing pockets of high incidence of diarrhoeal diseases which could be attributed to the current water crisis but no deaths have been recorded," Dr Mungofa said.
He said the health department was concerned with the current water problems, which were mainly affecting the city's eastern suburbs as they are situated on higher ground.
The suburbs include Greendale, Borrowdale, Mount Pleasant, Msasa Park, Letombo Park, Mabvuku and Tafara and have gone without tap water for more than a month forcing some residents to resort to fetching water from unprotected sources.
This weekend Zinwa was supposed to be throttling back supplies to the western suburbs to push supplies in the east, but eastern taps were still dry last night.
Two weeks ago Zinwa reported that water supplies were deteriorating owing to a critical shortage of chemicals such as aluminium sulphate, power cuts and increase in demand for water which has surpassed capacity of the Morton Jaffray Waterworks.
Morton Jaffray has a capacity of around 650 megalitres per day but on average produces up to 450 megalitres a day.
"Water shortages in homes, schools, churches, beerhalls and other public places are of grave concern to the city as the hygiene in those places and the health of people is severely compromised," Dr Mungofa said.
"The city residents now resort to fetching water from unprotected wells and polluted streams when piped water supply has not been available for long periods putting their health at risk," he said.
Dr Mungofa urged residents not to fetch water from such sources but when forced to do so they should apply disinfecting tablets and solutions to purify the water before use.
He said the tablets could be collected from water disinfecting points established by his department.
Dr Mungofa also said the taskforce on epidemic-prone diseases in the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare was also meeting monthly to come up with strategies and modalities to prevent and control disease outbreaks and epidemics. Tafara and Mabvuku, the two main high-density suburbs in the dry zone, are receiving water from Unicef in bowsers and the United Nations agency has been drilling boreholes at schools and clinics for the suburb.
In January more than 400 cases of diarrhoea were reported in both suburbs.
The outbreak was attributed to uncollected garbage, sewer blockages and erratic water supplies.
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