Deaths as a result of the devastating cholera epidemic have soared in South Africa and Zambia, as the flood of desperately ill Zimbabweans seeking treatment continues to pour into Zimbabwe's neighbouring countries.
Health officials in South Africa's Mpumalanga province this week made a shock announcement that 19 people in the province had died as a result of the disease in the past two weeks, bringing the total number of reported deaths in the country to 32.
Three deaths have been reported in the central Gauteng province, out the 185 suspected cases there, while more cases have been reported in at least two other provinces, with one death confirmed in KwaZulu-Natal. The Limpopo health department meanwhile is still fighting to stop the ongoing spread of cholera through the province, where nine people are confirmed to have died, and officials there have said the number of cases has risen to 2439, with 91 new cases reported in the past few days.
National health ministry officials have recently insisted the cholera spread in South Africa is unrelated to the crisis in Zimbabwe, but in all reported cholera cases across the country, a Zimbabwe link has been found. The situation is much the same in Zambia, where the death toll has also soared to 28. Health officials in the country have said the traffic of Zimbabweans crossing the border into Zambia for treatment has 'contributed' to the spread of the disease, and medical teams are said to be battling to contain the estimated 2000 cases reported there.
Meanwhile the disease has continued its spread in Zimbabwe and officially more than 2200 people have died and there are almost 44 000 reported cases since August. The onset of the rainy season recently prompted fears the disease would spread further out of control, and medical experts on the ground have predicted the worst is yet to come. At the same time, as the country sinks deeper into the rubble of its collapse, there are fears of a serious cholera outbreak in Bulawayo, where residents have not had running water for more than a week. No explanation has been given by the city council, whose workers have been on strike since Wednesday last week, citing the council's unwillingness to review their January salaries in foreign currency.
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Just in case some African countries were smug under the impression that bioterrorism unleashed in (or devastating economic sanctions imposed on) one African country by Africa's eternal white enemies is none of their concern.
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When will they learn? Do they have time or will they go the way of the American Indian tribes and the Australian Aborigines - weexterminated by the same whites?
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There is no safety in being weak or meek. And Africa's ancestors speak of this loudly from beyond. Ask Lumumba or King Shaka or the valiant Nzingha or Nkrumah or the Kabakas or Chief Lobengula or Mumia or ...
And now you are blaming the west for cholera? Dear oh dear. And let me guess, the west stopped the farms of Zimbabwe producing also? How can one country refusing to lend money to Zimbabwe have such a big impact. You dont think that some of this is the fault of the corrupt Zim 'government' and I say government in the loosest possible sense...
Chokora probably forgets that at one time for a SHORT WHILE ONLY there was FREE PRIMARY EDUCATION IN ZIM then they said they could not afford this - PERHAPS THE FAULT OF THE WEST!!!!!!
Are you freaking kidding me Choker?
Now the "West" has engaged in bioterrorism against Zimbabwe? You really do believe that, don't you?
Well, you have more confidence in the "Forces of Imperialism" than I do! Just how do you suppose something like this could be kept a secret?
Do you know that official U.S. Policy does not differentiate between a biological attack and a nuclear attack? If someone attacked the U.S. with bio-weapons, that our stated policy is to nuke them?
Or are you laughably trying to compare economic sanctions to biological warfare?
Isn't it strange that sanctions against less than 200 people in a supposedly "Totally Empowered" country can devastate an economy so badly? I guess Cuba didn't get the memo, they must not be as "Empowered" as Zimbabwe because they have got along just fine without trade with the U.S. for the last 50 years......
What do these "sanctions" and their alleged effects say about the distribution of wealth in Zimbabwe?
If you truly believe the U.S. would waste it's time and energy on any kind of attack on the peple of Zimbabwe, then you're deluded. Zimbabwe has nothing that we want or need that we can't get more easily elsewhere.
Isn't also strange that cases of cholera in SA, Mozabique, Botswana are all dramatically lower than they are in Zimbabwe? I don't suppose that would have anything to do with the availability of clean drinking water, functioning public sanitation of open hospitals? How do they do it when Zimbabwe cannot?
People like you who are so easily duped to spout the inane propaganda that you do are nothing more than a boil on one's arse that needs to be lanced. I suspect the people of Zimbabwe will eventually lance you themselves.........
"Total Empowerment!" to starve, to be beaten, to be abducted by State Security, to be tortured - to DIE, that is what the promise of what was once Zimbabwe has become under the stewardship of ZANU-PF/Mugabe, nothing but empty revolutionary slogans - and it's pretty hard to feed a nation with empty slogans.......
Have you been to Lusaka this rainy season? it is sadly a pure breeding ground for disease of epidermic proportions. there is no drainage system and side streets are but mud and pools of stagnant water alongside open vegetable and food markets. Cholera outbreaks would be purely of Zambian origin. I wonder what the Health Minister there is up to, even the city engineers and health departments? On this one dont blame it on Zimbabwe.