Residents in Harare say they live on a “cholera time-bomb” as the Zimbabwean city struggles to clean up garbage and maintain sewers in an outbreak that has already cost 27 lives.
An unusually wet rainy season compounds the problem, especially in slum areas like Dzivarasekwa, about 10km north of the city, and the sprawling semi-urban area of Epworth, to the east.
In Dzivarasekwa township, home to an estimated 200 000 people according to a rate-payers’ association, raw sewage flows out of open sewers.
Residents who every day face stinking brooks have sardonically named the township “Victoria Falls”.
Pius Makowa, who lost his shelter in Zimbabwe’s infamous Operation Murambatsvina, sleeps on the streets every night about 10m from the putrid stream.
“This place is a cholera time-bomb,” he told Agence France-Presse, wrinkling his nose in disgust.
“We are afraid we’ll get cholera but there is nowhere else to go. Living here makes breathing difficult,” added Makowa.
Funsai Takawira, who lives with his two children in the semi-urban area of Epworth to the east, said many residents had problems with upset stomachs.
“We are not able to distinguish between diarrhoea and cholera. We just know that it can spread very fast,” the 38-year-old said at the Epworth Polyclinic where four white tents bearing the World Health Organisation logo were erected inside a restricted and fenced-off area.
A group of about 90 residents were sitting outside the red-brick clinic where a health worker was giving a lecture on the deadly water-borne disease.
“How many of you know about cholera,” he asked in the local language Shona, with only person indicating that he knew about the disease. But despite concerns, the government said the cholera outbreak was under control.
“We didn’t have any new cases,” said Deputy Health Minister Edwin Muguti.
“The outbreak is under control and we will continue to react quickly should there be more cases,” Muguti told AFP.
But some doctors disagreed.
“We are far from seeing the end of the outbreak,” said Douglas Gwatihdzo, chairperson of the Zimbabwean Association for Doctors for Human Rights.
“The city has numerous heaps of garbage which gets washed into the water when it rains,” he said.
If there were to be a serious outbreak, Gwatihdzo said he did not think hospitals would have the ability to cope.
Harare’s cholera scare tells the story of broader problems within the capital, hard hit by fuel shortages, a lack of foreign currency and outdated equipment.
Despite a government clean-up campaign, overcrowding remains a problem. The city council has been battling to collect heaps of garbage and provide clean drinking water, forcing some residents to dig wells and get water from open streams, exposing them to water-borne diseases.
The city currently has 14 refuse collection trucks as opposed to the 90 required, the UN news agency Irin reported.
Murambatsvina, the country’s urban clean-up operation which has left some 700 000 homeless according to the UN, has exacerbated the situation, seeing many residents live in even more cramped conditions than before. – AFP