Diarrhoeal outbreaks cause for concern

Paidamoyo Chipunza Senior Health Reporter
Zimbabwe has been sitting on an outbreak of common diarrhoea for the past six years, largely due to conditions that are outside the Health Ministry’s jurisdiction, epidemiology and disease prevention director in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Dr Portia Manangazira has said. Addressing journalists at a public health workshop organised by the Health Journalists Association of Zimbabwe (HeJAZ) in conjunction with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in Harare yesterday, Dr Manangazira said most of the conditions that led to the 2008-2009 cholera outbreak remain unaddressed.

Some of these factors include interrupted water supplies in high-density suburbs and supply of unsafe water, unattended sewage bursts and mushrooming of unregulated urban areas.

“The only way you can tell that you are approaching Harare is the smell of sewage. What worries us is whether authorities who are supposed to act on some of these issues know the gravity and consequences of their non actions,” said Dr Manangazira.

She said the mushrooming of unregularised urban settlements was also a cause for concern for Government as the areas do not have either clean and safe water or proper sanitary facilities.

“We are seeing many urban settlements where people are allowed to build houses where no servicing was done. Residents do not have access to running water and they rely on wells,” she said.