Harare/Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic, the worst
in Africa in 15 years, has slowed from the meteoric infection rates
recorded earlier this year, but the risk of another escalation is
still high, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies warned Tuesday.
The warning came as the epidemic was predicted to notch up its
100,000th case this week since it began nine months ago in a township
outside the capital Harare.
Since then, the water-borne diarrhoeal disease has killed nearly
4,300 people, in what the Red Cross describes as an 'unacceptably
high' fatality rate of 4.4 per cent, for a disease that is easily
preventable and treated.
The infection rate in recent weeks has slowed to 1.7 per cent,
after aid agencies set up emergency camps to deal with new
infections, provided millions of litres of clean water, sank new
boreholes and distributed water purification tablets, among other
measures.
The dramatic aggression of the epidemic has also burnt itself out,
health officials say.
'But the steady decline in the spread of the illness should not be
seen as a complete victory,' the Red Cross said in a statement,
noting that the fundamental drivers of Zimbabwe's public health
crisis remained largely unchecked.
Unless significant efforts were made to rehabilitate at least some
components of the country's degraded water and sanitation
infrastructure, communities remain vulnerable to further and severe
outbreaks, the Red Cross said.
Until the mid 1990s, Zimbabwe's well-run health system kept the
cholera pathogen largely at bay.
But accelerating economic decay under President Robert Mugabe's
former government saw urban infrastructure collapse. Water supplies
to millions of people dried up, sewerage systems jammed and rubbish
heaps grew, creating the conditions for a cholera outbreak.
Cholera is now endemic in Zimbabwe, health experts say.
The Red Cross says its emergency treatment centres 'were only ever
interim measures.'
The organisation now needs 3.4 million dollars for medium- to
long-term measures, including the rehabilitation of 1,150 boreholes,
the drilling of 263 new water points and construction of 3,755 pit
latrines for 655,000 families in high-risk areas.
'Today our appeal is less than half-funded,' said Emma Kundishora,
secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society, in a statement.
'We will be revising our operation, scaling back just at the time
when humanitarian assistance needs to be dramatically scaled up.
This is simply untenable.'
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