Published by the government of Zimbabwe
6 January 2009
editorial
Harare — THE Government's declaration this week that all district hospitals across the country are now cholera command centres clearly demonstrates the resolve to prevent, treat and eliminate the epidemic.
And the national roll-out programme launched in Harare yesterday that will see an extensive and intensive educational campaign on cholera prevention, treatment and control, also dovetails into the district command centre structures.
All this translates to decentralisation of the fight against cholera that guarantees rapid response to all cases with district hospitals co-ordinating the efforts.
This is taking place as a result of collaborative action involving the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the World Health Organisation and Unicef.
In addition, Sadc members -- South Africa, Zambia, Namibia, Malawi, Tanzania and Botswana -- have been joined by China, Venezuela and Libya in making a significant contribution to our fight against the cholera outbreak.
These developments come on the back of the realisation that while the cholera situation is stabilising, the disease is still there and new cases are being recorded in some parts of the country.
We are also in the midst of the rains -- one of the predisposing factors in the spread of cholera, which makes it compelling to take appropriate action on the ground.
Latest statistics on cholera show that the disease has claimed 1 600 lives while there are over 33 000 suspected and confirmed cases since the disease surfaced in Chitungwiza in August last year.
Although there has been cholera incidences in the country over the past years, the disease was treated, controlled and eliminated without a hassle.
But when an outbreak occurred in Unit O, Chitungwiza, last year, we all believed it would be contained, only for the disease to spread to places like Budiriro, Glen View, Beitbridge, Chegutu and Kwekwe.
It is clear that the spread to other places has been a result of a number of factors chief among them the illegal sanctions that have constrained Government's capacity to contain the epidemic, individuals travelling from one point to the other and unsupervised burials of victims.
This is exactly why it has taken long to contain the disease. But now we believe that, with the roll-out of the awareness campaign, structures have been created across the country for rapid prevention, treatment and elimination of the disease.
And what is needed is to vigorously address the epidemic by ensuring that appropriate action is taken.
It would then require that every person suspected of, or diagnosed of cholera is traced and dealt with by effecting the necessary treatment.
There is also need to ensure that the burial of victims of cholera is properly supervised, without the traditional washing of body and viewing taking place.
The bottom line is cholera, though easily treatable, remains a threat to life mainly because of ignorance, which is why the awareness campaign is integral to contain both the incidence and spread of the disease.
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Should read ; Awareness campaign LAUGHABLE!
tHEY SLEEP COMFORTABLY AND LAUGH ALL THE WAY TO THE SWISS BANK!!!!!
Terrorists are those who claim the country has no foreign currency because of sanctions yet they have over USD100000.00 (AMERICAN DOLLARS) in cash in their houses. Zimbabwean hospitals have no drugs to treat even a headache because of lack of foreign currency but a Governor of City of Harare has over USD100 000.00 in his house. Is that not terrorism. Jallohlaw how much do you have in your house?
At least the Herald got something right in the very last paragraph:
"The bottom line is cholera, though easily treatable, remains a threat to life mainly because of ignorance, which is why the awareness campaign is integral to contain both the incidence and spread of the disease"
They got the part right about cholera being easily treatable - that's it, as for the rest.............? Cholera remains a threat to life NOT from ignorance but from the lack of clean drinking water and lack of proper sanitation in Zimbabwe.
And.......... the reason there is no clean drinking water or proper… [Read Full Text]
I said it several months ago when the body bag count was only 450. Cholera is something that civilized countries don't encounter or when it crops up, it is easily beat down. Civilized countries don't get Cholera! But Zimbabwe has bloomed into a poster child of death. It is the total failure and fault of Comrade Robert Mugabe and ZANU-pf. Isn't dictatorship wonderful.
Yeah right. This is after 1700 Zimbabweans have died. The Zimbabwean government just doesn't get it. They are ineffective, unproductive and useless to progression.
After 28 years of independence we have to wait for other countries to help us out of every situation. How do these so called politicians sleep at night?