Harare/Johannesburg/Lusaka - An international health rights
organization has called for Zimbabwe's health-care system to be
placed under international receivership, reports in neighbouring
South Africa said Tuesday.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said in a statement, 'We
recommend the entire health system ... water, sanitation ... be
handed over to world receivership,' as reported by the South African
Press Association (SAPA).
The organization said the United Nations should take charge of the
health system in the southern African country that is facing its
worst economic and humanitarian crisis.
PHR chief executive Frank Donaghue was quoted as saying public
hospitals in Zimbabwe were without water and drugs, while health-care
workers were unable to get to work because they could not afford the
transport
'We believe an emergency health system needs to be put in place,'
Donaghue said.
'So we would hold that the United Nations now has the power to
step in and set in some type of system to take over the health system
of Zimbabwe,' he added.
A cholera epidemic has claimed 1,937 lives in Zimbabwe since the
outbreak was reported in August, according to figures released by the
World Health Organization on Monday.
The WHO said 38,334 people had contracted the water-borne disease
in Zimbabwe. Cholera has since also spread to neighbouring countries,
including Zambia, South Africa and Botswana.
In Zimbabwe, the epidemic was being fuelled by a lack of clean
drinking water and chronic shortages of food and other essentials.
Some experts have blamed the government for the cholera epidemic over
its failure to import adequate water purification chemicals.
Last month, President Robert Mugabe's government declared the
disease a national emergency. International governments and
organizations such as the WHO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors
without Borders), USAID and Oxfam have since moved to help combat the
disease.
Experts have warned that the situation could deteriorate with the
advent of the rainy season and flooding that has been forecast for
some parts of Zimbabwe.
Cholera deaths in Zambia have reached 28 as the southern African
nation battles to contain about 2,000 reported cases of cholera,
according to radio reports Tuesday.
Ministry of Health spokesman Cannisius Banda told a private radio
programme that traffic from Zimbabwe and poor water and sanitation
systems, mainly in Zambia's peripheral urban areas have contributed
to the spread of the water-borne disease.
Banda said Zambia had assessed the cholera situation in Zimbabwe
and, rather than close its border, would assist patients from
Zimbabwe in border areas with drugs and foods.
The government also planned to provide 2 billion kwacha (400,000
dollars) in aid, he said.
Another of Zimbabwe's neighbours, South Africa, continues to
detect new cases. By Monday, 2,000 people infected throughout the
country where 13 people have from the treatable since late last year.
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