adminLoveness Bepete Chronicle Reporter
ZIMBABWE experienced the deadliest cholera outbreak in Africa since 1993 recording 4,293 deaths by January 2010, in the 2009 outbreak, the World Health Organisation (Who) has revealed.
WHO reports that 98,741 cholera cases were reported during the epidemic that was caused by lack of access to safe water.
About six million children have died in Africa since 2000 due to low standards of hygiene caused by lack of toilets, a United Nations report says.
The shocking figures were revealed in a Water Aid Toilet Day commemorations report.
The commemorations are held worldwide on November 19 every year.
The principal cause of the outbreak was said to be lack of access to safe water in urban areas and communities.
More than 36 international health and development experts including Water Aid, said without basic sanitation, children have no choice but to live and play in areas contaminated by human waste, leading to cholera outbreaks.
“Seven in 10 children in Sub-Saharan Africa don’t have access to a basic toilet, which alongside unsafe drinking water and a lack of hygiene service which contributes to the World’s three main killers of children: under nutrition, pneumonia and diarrhoea.”
Also according to WHO, 88 percent of diarrhoea cases are attributable to lack of access to basic sanitation, unsafe drinking water and poor hygiene.
Over 5,8 million children are estimated to have died because of diarrhoeal diseases from 2000 to 2013 in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a lack of these services resulting in 5.1 million of these deaths.
Water Aid Chief Executive Barbara Frost said 10 million lives have been lost since the millennium.
“The dangers of poor sanitation and dirty water have been known for 150 years, yet still more than one in three children don’t have a safe toilet to use which often leads to a lifetime legacy of disease and poverty,” said Frost.
Amref Health Africa’s Director General, Dr Teguest Guerma, said safe sanitation, good hygiene and clean water are fundamental to improving health and well–being.
“Shocking reality is that far too many people lack even these basic services and as a result millions of people die every year from diseases that could have been prevented,” said Dr Guerma.
The international organisations said they aimed at championing the goal to deliver water and sanitation to everyone, everywhere by 2030.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter