SW Radio Africa (London)
Alex Bell
24 November 2008
Zimbabwe's deadly cholera outbreak has sparked fears of the disease taking hold in South Africa, as scores of Zimbabwean victims are reportedly crossing the border for treatment unavailable in their country.
This is according to South African health officials, who this weekend met with their Zimbabwean counterparts to discuss the outbreak now affecting both countries. Phuti Seloba, spokesman for the health department in the border town Musina, said the weekend meeting in Zimbabwe's Beitbridge was 'fruitful', saying the disease is "our common problem and we need to solve it jointly." Seloba however declined to reveal to journalists how South Africa plans assisting Zimbabwe over the water-borne disease.
Four people, including a South African truck driver who was hospitalised in the southeastern coastal city of Durban, have died in South Africa in the past week. The other three victims, who died in Musina, were Zimbabweans who fled the outbreak in a desperate bid to receive treatment in South Africa. The situation paints a clear picture of desperation, with Zimbabweans choosing to make the often dangerous border crossing to seek help for a disease that experts say is relatively easy to treat. Officials in South Africa say more than 160 people have been treated for the disease in Musina, and all but three of the patients are Zimbabweans.
Meanwhile as concerns in South Africa grow that the disease will continue to spread in that country, the death toll in Zimbabwe continues to rise. The United Nations has said at least 294 people are confirmed to have died in hospital from the outbreak. But according to an anonymous senior member of an international aid group, the numbers may be far higher. "The 300 deaths all occurred in hospitals," the official said in a recent press report. "The number of deaths in the community must be up to 400 per cent higher."
Another 6000 people are believed to have been diagnosed with the disease, which has spread to almost all provinces - appearing in new towns almost every day. The charity Doctors Without Borders estimated last week that 1.4 million people, just in and around the capital Harare, are at risk of the disease and there have been unanswered calls for the government to declare the outbreak a crisis. The government, still firmly in the clutches of ZANU PF, has instead made a determined effort to keep the nature of the crisis behind closed doors - going as far as barring the influential group of global leaders, The Elders, from visiting the country to assess the humanitarian crisis. Journalists are reportedly also being barred by ZANU PF youth from going into clinics in Budiriro, where it's believed at least 10 people are dying from cholera each day.
SW Radio Africa correspondent Lionel Saungweme explained on Monday that the government is now also "taking advantage of the situation" by using the cholera outbreak as an excuse to clamp down on everyday life. He explained that streets vendors have become the targets of police who confiscate their wares "supposedly in an effort to fight cholera."
"This is clearly part of a broader propaganda campaign to keep people in line with ZANU PF," Saungweme said. "The government hasn't done anything to even try to alleviate the dangers of the outbreak."
The government has turned the epidemic to an even greater advantage, by banning two rallies planned in Harare over the weekend by the MDC. The official explanation was "because of the cholera situation".
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