|
|
|
Media blackout worsens cholera threat- cost
life
A Leading Zimbabwe weekly newspaper reports that a media blackout
is compounding a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe which has claimed
hundreds of lives.
The Financial Gazette online reports that the government has
placed a lid on information and statistical data that could unravel
the true picture of the devastating cholera outbreak. In
some cases, the paper reports, a lack of information about the
disease is causing more infections and deaths in some communities.
|
Official figures released by the Health Ministry
indicate that 120 people have died of cholera and 991 hospitalised
ever since the disease struck a few months ago.
But a United Nations report issued from Geneva, Switzerland said: “The
cholera outbreak has taken a national dimension. Newer outbreaks
are reported from all provinces. The total number of suspected
cholera cases in the country stands at 6 072 cases and 294 deaths.”
It means therefore, that the number of deaths caused by the waterborne
disease are going unreported due to the breakdown of the country’s
infrastructure, particularly health, transport and telecommunications.
As the disease spreads across the borders, South Africa has approached
the World Health Organisation, to urgently step in to address
Zimbabwe’s cholera problems.
South Africa’s National Health Minister, Barbara Hogan
said: “Our fear is of people crossing the border, getting
into the country, going to other provinces, without going through
checks to see if they are healthy, or have contracted the virus.”
Pretoria says three people have died and 1,000 were being treated
for cholera in Musina, which is close to the border with Zimbabwe’s
Beitbridge town. Forty-four lives have been lost in Beitbridge
ever since the disease hit the dormitory town last week.
Hundreds of Zimbabweans legally and illegally cross into South
Africa everyday to find food and jobs as economic woes continue
to bite back home.
With the South African initiative coming hard on the heels of
another failed external intervention by The Elders, Kofi Anan,
Jimmy Carter and Graca Machel to assess the humanitarian situation
in Zimbabwe, there are doubts that it may not get a favourable
response from President Robert Mugabe’s government.
The Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights last week urged the government
to “declare the cholera outbreak a national disaster and
solicit international support to bring it under control and restore
supply of safe water and sanitation systems to Zimbabwe's population”.
David Parirenyatwa, the Health Minister, has also described the
cholera outbreak as a national disaster. Parirenyatwa had previously
urged Zimbabweans to “remain calm since we are on top of
the situation,” but he backtracked last week saying: “Government
should declare the current cholera outbreak a national disaster
so as to galvanise all the resources necessary to get the outbreak
under control.”
He said the inadequate supply of clean water has been the biggest
setback in efforts to get the situation under control.At the
epicenter of the spread of the fatal infection has been the capital
city, Harare, where warnings were made months ago that the disease
would breakout due to poor sanitation and lack of clean water.
However, the disease has for some time been silently killing
villagers on the country’s border with Mozambique, where
a recent outbreak is reported to have claimed 59 lives.
For example, an unconfirmed report says 20 villagers died in
the last week of November and more than 60 were hospitalised
after contracting cholera in remote Mudzi District at Chakuposhiwa
village, located close to the Mozambican border.
The catastrophe that nearly wiped out the entire village was
one of the many incidences probably missing from the country’s
official data, still to capture all the deaths caused by the
waterborne disease.
At Chakuposhiwa village, after one of the villagers died of cholera,
relatives and friends proceeded with the normal burial rites.
One of the burial rites entailed that a dead person be kept overnight
or for two days before burial.
Unbeknown to the villagers was the fact that bodies of cholera
victims must be disposed of as fast as possible and no food is
to be prepared or consumed while shacking of hands — a
customary way of greeting each other or extending condolences — is
not allowed in such circumstances. But for these villagers, it
was business as usual. Tragedy struck as almost the entire village
besieged Gozi Clinic in Chief Chikwizo seeking treatment and
a Medicins Sans Frontiers team from the district’s Kotwa
Growth point was forced to rush back to Kotwa to get more drugs.
People are now so scared of collecting their own relatives’ bodies
from mortuaries fearing that they may also contract the disease
whose effects one horrified villager described as worse than
HIV/Aids.
Health experts say, in its most severe form, cholera is one of
the most rapidly fatal illnesses known, and a healthy person
may become hypotensive within an hour of the onset of symptoms;
infected patients may die within three hours if treatment is
not provided. In a common scenario, the disease progresses from
the first liquid stool to shock in four to 12 hours, with death
following in 18 hours to several days without oral rehydration
therapy. Symptoms include rapid dehydration, rapid pulse, dry
skin, tiredness, abdominal cramps, nausea, and vomiting.
According to the experts the source of cholera is usually infected
people when their untreated diahorrea discharge is allowed to
get into waterways or into groundwater or drinking supplies.
This information now filtering into villages has made the rural
folk even more afraid given the onset of the rainfall season
and that scores, mainly for religious reasons, are dying from
the disease in the villages and no disinfection is taking place.
Rashweat Mukundu
Programme Specialist: Media Freedom Monitoring
MISA Regional Secretariat
21 Johann Albrecht Street
Private Bag 13386
Windhoek, Namibia
Tel: + 264 61 232 975
Fax:+264 61 248016
Mobile: 00 264 813 675 362
E mail rashweat@misa.org, misaalerts@gmail.com
Back
|
 |
|
|
| |
|
