THE GOVERNMENT will next week start rolling out cholera vaccines in most of the hotspots such as Harare, Chitungwiza and Buhera, in an effort to contain the outbreak of the disease that has claimed 447 lives since February last year.
Health and Child Care minister Douglas Mombeshora, however, told journalists in Harare yesterday that the vaccines were inadequate to cover the whole country. Zimbabwe has recorded a total of 20 171 cholera cases since February last year.
“Our case fatality ratio stands at 1,8%. WHO (World Health Organisation) accepts a fatality rate of 1% or less. It means our management is quite good despite all these diarrhoeal cases. I can also say the confirmed deaths are 447 since February last year,” he said.
“Our ministry has successfully applied for oral cholera vaccine from international co-ordinating group on vaccine provision. The decision to allocate 2,3 million vaccines was made on January 12, with the initial 892 000 coming into the country by January 28.”
The death rate is, seemingly rising, with Mombeshora revealing that six people died from the disease between Tuesday and yesterday afternoon. He also expressed government’s concern over gatherings especially at funerals.
“Those relatives handling people, who would have had diarrhoea, were also contaminating and acquiring the same diseases from their relatives.“In our tradition, we love going to funerals and if you don’t go you are probably suspected that you have something to do with the death, now we saw a number of deaths around that area,” he said.
At the centre of the cholera, is poor sanitation and lack of clean water supplies which has prompted the government to endeavour improve the quality of water and sewage reticulation.
Agriculture minister Anxious Masuku told the media that a total of US$1,6 million had been sourced for water treatment chemicals in Harare.“An additional US$13 million is being looked into so that the water woes can be eliminated,” he said.
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