World Health Organization reports 6,072 cases of cholera in Zimbabwe; 294 deaths

By Associated Press
12:19 PM EST, November 21, 2008
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) _ The World Health Organization said Friday that 294 people have died from a cholera outbreak exacerbated by the country's collapsing health care system.

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said that a total 6,072 cases had been reported between the start of August and Nov. 18, with an upsurge in cases in the past two weeks.

A lack of clean water and poorly maintained sewage systems have allowed the waterborne intestinal disease to thrive. Zimbabwe's deepening political and economic crisis has crippled the country's health system.

The U.N health body warned that with the start of the rainy season, the outbreak was likely to continue as the water and sanitation situation is worsening. Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, has warned that 1.4 million people are at risk.

Doctors in Zimbabwe earlier demonstrated against the country's collapsing health care system and blamed the government for the disease's spread. The cholera outbreak has caused a crisis in hospitals in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, and also has reached over the border into neighboring South Africa.

A WHO statement issued in Geneva, Switzerland, said it was working with the government and other international aid groups to try to control the epidemic.

Mugabe's land of starvation...
Mhangura - Katy Phiri, who is in her 70s, picks up single mealie kernels spilled from trucks that ferry the harvest to market.

She says she hasn't eaten for three days.

Rebecca Chipika, nine, prods a stick into a termite mound to draw out insects. She sweeps them into a bag for her family's evening meal.

These scenes from a food catastrophe are unfolding in Doma, a rural district where journalists rarely venture.

It's a stronghold of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and his enforcers are everywhere.

At a school for villagers enrolment is down to four pupils from 20.

The teachers still willing to work in this once-thriving farming and mining district 257km northeast of Harare say parents pay them in maize, cooking oil, goats or chickens.
…

Zim dying while leaders squabble
The South African Government has condemned as \"unacceptable\" the fact that people's lives are being put at risk while Zimbabwean political parties fight over positions in cabinet, and has announced immediate steps to try and curb the cholera outbreak that has crossed the border and is now putting Limpopo's health services under strain.
…

3,000 dead from cholera in Zimbabwe
…
A senior official in the health ministry told The Independent yesterday that more than 3,000 people have died from the water-borne disease in the past two weeks, 10 times the widely-reported death toll of just over 300. \"But even this higher figure is still an understatement because very few bother to register the deaths of their relatives these days,\" said the official, who requested anonymity.
He said the health ministry, which once presided over a medical system that was the envy of Africa, had been banned from issuing accurate statistics about the deaths, and that certificates for the fraction of deaths that had been registered were being closely guarded by the home affairs ministry.
…
The disease: Deadly, but preventable
…
Preventing cholera relies on proper sewage treatment, sanitation and water purification.

Zim cholera 'to get worse'
…
\"It's very regrettable that people are dying of cholera,\" Muguti said, and again blamed Western sanctions on President Robert Mugabe for creating the outbreak.
…

South Africa 'at risk of cholera'
A leading South African scientist has warned that gross underinvestment in water management has left it at risk of a cholera outbreak.
Five people have died from cholera in South Africa, after crossing from Zimbabwe, where a recent outbreak has killed more than 300 people.
Anthony Turton told the BBC that unless South Africa increased its spending on water, it was heading for disaster.
He was recently sacked from a state body over his report on water safety.
Mr Turton was suspended by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) last week after being prevented from presenting a paper in which he concludes that South Africa is \"heading for a significant crisis in the water sector\".
…