Story by Abigirl Tembo, Health Editor
THE World Health Organisation (WHO) has called for a coordinated response to halt the cholera outbreak in the country which has claimed more than 170 lives since February this year.
With a cumulative 178 people having succumbed to suspected cholera cases out of a total of 10 336 suspected cases, WHO says the figures are too high.
Speaking after handing over a consignment of cholera medicines to the country, W.H.O regional director Dr Matshidiso Moeti noted the need for more efforts towards cholera response.
“We are happy to be able to provide support towards the cholera response. We need to end this before the Christmas movement starts. These medicines will enable the establishment of cholera centres. We need to redouble our efforts seeing that our case fatality is very high so as WHO we will continue fighting this disease,” she said.
Health and Child Care Minister, Dr Douglas Mombeshora expressed gratitude to the WHO for their continued support, adding that the government has put in place several mechanisms to stop the spread of the disease.
“Firstly, let me say thank you very much for this huge donation it’s going to make a huge difference in our approach to bringing cholera to an end. At the moment, we are not happy because the figures are too high although when we compare the figures to last week we had about 1 744 new cases in one week countrywide that is the previous week, but last week we had 1 520 so there has been a decrease.
“The challenges we had in Kuwadzana was with the water supply but now the government has intervened through the Ministry of Energy, they were able to repair the main electricity line dedicated to the water treatment plant at Moton Jeffrey water treatment plant so we are now hoping that fresh water will be availed more frequently than before,” he said.
The consignment valued at nearly 300 thousand United States dollars, consists of essential drugs, renewable supplies, equipment, and medicines for the management of cases.
