No water in Harare as cholera crisis deepens

By Violet Gonda
1 December 2008

International health agencies are revising their figures for Zimbabwe’s cholera epidemic and, shockingly, predict at least 300,000 infected by year end.

No one knows the exact number of dead but Health Minister David Parirenyatwa is quoted as saying there have been 11,071 cases reported since the epidemic began seven weeks ago, with 425 deaths. But these are the numbers of people who made it to hospital – it doesn’t include the many tens of thousands who are dying quietly at home in the rural areas.

There have been 6 main outbreaks, with the worst seen in Harare - in particular Budiriro - followed closely by Beit Bridge.

At Budiriro clinic the number of cases had accelerated dramatically, from 150 a day to 500 a day by the weekend. A health worker said; 'They are just not coping, it's as if it's a war zone. I was there for 30 minutes and saw two bodies being taken out.'

Most doctors and nurses are on strike and pictures have been seen around the world this weekend of clean and empty hospitals, hospitals with beds, mattresses and pillows - but no drugs and no staff.

The sick and dying are being treated in tented field hospitals, set up mainly by foreign medical aid workers. They’re trying to help contain the epidemic, which is thriving as the whole structure of society breaks down under a government that has no interest in it’s people. Raw sewage surrounds homes in high density areas and rubbish hasn’t been collected for months.

On Monday part of the MDC leadership visited cholera victims in Budiriro and Mbare. MDC Vice-President Thokozani Khupe called for the immediate intervention of the international community. She was speaking at the Beatrice Infectious Diseases Hospital in Harare. She said Zanu PF should stop politicking about the crisis as the people of Zimbabwe had been seriously affected.

In the middle of the crisis Harare residents woke up on Saturday to find they had no water, as ZINWA admitted they had stopped pumping after running out of one of the essential chemicals, aluminium sulphate.
ZINWA workers said there was no pumping at Morton Jaffray Waterworks, and could not say when pumping would resume.

The water authority had "yet to receive a consignment of chemicals imported from South Africa through funding from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.”

Residents of Harare desperately need safe drinking water, but all Dr Parirenyatwa could say on how to avoid the disease was: "I want to stress the issue of shaking hands. Although its part of our tradition to shake hands, it's high time people stopped shaking hands,"