Harare - Medical experts have forecast that a worst-case
scenario in Zimbabwe's rampaging cholera epidemic could see earlier
predictions double to 123,000 cases and go beyond May this year.
Just over a week ago, according to the Zimbabwean Association of
Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR), the epidemic passed Africa's worst,
in Angola in 2007, when over 82,000 people were infected with the
highly infectious water-borne disease and 3,204 died.
Late last year the World Health Organisation estimated that the
worst-case figure could reach 60,000 cases, a level passed already in
January.
By Friday last week the WHO had recorded 84,027 cases, with 3,894
deaths recorded in Zimbabwe. The rate of fatalities had reached 4.6
percent, nearly five times what the WHO regards as 'acceptable.'
The Cholera Command and Control Centre, comprising officials from
the WHO, the Zimbabwe health ministry and aid agencies involved in
combatting the epidemic, early last month forecast up to 92,000
infections.
But, according to ZADHR, the continuing rapid increase in cases
and still-collapsed state of the health, water and sanitation systems
meant 'the worst-case scenario of 122,945 seems likely to occur if
drastic improvements ... are not made immediately.'
Fighting the epidemic has become one of the most urgent tasks of
the 18-day-old coalition government between President Robert Mugabe'a
Zanu-PF party and new prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for
Democratic Change.
The outbreak of the disease in August was triggered by the
simultaneous breakdown of water supply, sanitation and refuse
collection services in crowded townships.
'Warnings ... of an impending major cholera outbreak went
unheeded,' the doctors association found.
It took Mugabe's government four months to declare the disease a
national emergency.
In recent weeks, aid agencies have significantly reduced the
number of cases in urban areas but the outbreak is continuing to make
inroads into rural areas and into the country's river system.
The number of people dying at home, with no access to healthcare
and little money for basic rehydration products such as sugar and
salt, is now at 60 per cent.
Last week, top WHO official Daniel Acuna said that a massive
effort by aid agencies might bring the epidemic 'to a reasonable
pattern of control' within three weeks. 'This is a big if,' he
warned.
'If we don't make that push, we may continue to seeing this for
many more weeks, and have an absolutely avoidable toll of people who
could be living healthy lives.'
USA
Your Talkback on this Story