United Nations Radio

Nurse Diki Dudzai checks cholera patient

ADAMS: The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning that the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, one of the largest ever recorded, is far from being brought under control. WHO says there is an urgent need to intensify efforts to respond to this epidemic which has killed over 3,000 people since it broke out in August. There are now more than 60,000 cases of cholera in Zimbabwe. Dr. Eric Laroche, who deals with health crises at WHO, says the problem with the epidemic is that it is now spreading from urban centres to rural areas:

CUT 1: Eric Laroche
Beause of the Christmas and New Year that means people have been migrating back to the village to greet their family members and so on, and because also of the rainy season and the deplorable conditions of sanitation and access to potable water, that has spread the disease outside of the cities into the rural communities. And guess what? There are no services at the rural level.

ADAMS: This is happening in a country whose health infrastructure has nearly collapsed in urban areas. The situation is even worse in the rural areas and poses a particular challenge for health workers. Dr. Laroche points out that cholera can be contained by preventing new cases.

CUT 2: Eric Laroche
And this is about sanitation. It is about hygiene. It is about raising awareness. It is about access to potable water. To do that in rural areas is a completely different technique than to tackle that in urban areas. So we have to have new skills. We have to have people going there, being there and doing the job. And we do not have that kind of specialty. There are not many NGOs outside of the cities.

ADAMS: The World Health Organization, working with Zimbabwean authorities, has responded to the outbreak of cholera by establishing a cholera Command and Control Centre in the capital Harare. WHO spokesperson, Fadela Chaib says that structures have also been put in place at the national level to deal with epidemic.

CUT 3: Fadela Chaib
Now what is desperately needed is that the same structure is being replicated at the provincial level so that the coordination mechanism and the response mechanism can be also reflected at the provincial level where, in fact, the cholera epidemics are spreading.

ADAMS: Fadela Chaib says that it is difficult to keep track of the spread of cholera in the rural areas.

CUT 4: Fadela Chaib
It's jumping from one area to the other. It's mushrooming that's why it's so out of control because it's very difficult to anticipate where the next hot spot is going to occur and in fact, due to the fact that the whole infrastructure is decayed and is the same all over the country, it is in fact, very difficult to see where we need to do the preventive actions as a priority because everything should be dealt in the same time.

ADAMS: Dr. Eric Laroche says that another major obstacle in the efforts to contain and prevent the spread of cholera is a lack of money to pay health workers. Some health professionals who work for non-governmental organizations do get better salaries than those who work in government hospitals.

CUT 5: Eric Laroche
So when you have an NGO that is there and can pay them for $100 per month, and the same nurse just beside that NGO nurse is getting $10 per month, how can he work? Those that are getting $10 a month will work for a while and when they see that they cannot get $100 per month they will leave. And I think these are the conditions in which we are working. Now we have to be serious. Either we want to get rid of the situation or then we need to pay people. Then we have to find money, and we have to find ways by which we are going to do that or we are not going to be able to make it.

ADAMS: In November last year the Untied Nations launched an appeal for more than $500 million to respond to help the people of Zimbabwe grapple with the economic crisis in their country, According to a United Nations spokesperson, so far no contributions have been receive.

Producer: Derrick Mbatha
Narrator: Gerry Adams
Duration: 3'48"