Zimbabwe: A country death watchCholera cases exceed 60,000 in Zimbabwe
Robert Mugabe’s war on his people continues: the number of cholera cases in Zimbabwe has exceeded WHO’s nightmare scenario of 60,000; the Mugabe regime’s systematic looting of the country and its destruction of the country’s public services and infrastructure — especially the health care system and water delivery and treatment facilities — may make the epidemic unstoppable
When looking for rulers brutalizing their own poor, helpless citizens, few would equal South Africa’s disgraced Tabo Mbeki, the successor to Nelson Mandela. As we reported last month, new study by Harvard researchers estimated that the South African government would have prevented the premature deaths of 365,000 people earlier this decade if it had provided antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients and widely administered drugs to help prevent pregnant women from infecting their babies. The Harvard study concluded that the policies of preventing South Africans from having access to antiretroviral drugs grew out of President Mbeki’s denial of the well-established scientific consensus about the viral cause of AIDS and the essential role of antiretroviral drugs in treating it. Mbeki not only joined forces with the HIV “denialists” to prevent the use of antiretroviral drugs: He sent Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, his government health minister — if the term “health minister” even applies here — to tours around the country to advocate the use of garlic, lemon juice, and beetroot as AIDS remedies (read more about this sorry story in Celia Dugger’s detailed, and disturbing, New York Times account).
Among the few who would give Mbeki a run for this title in infamy would be Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s sclerotic and corrupt despot. Two months after Mugabe announced that the cholera epidemic in his country has been “contained,” the World Health Organization has issued a call for urgent action to tackle the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe. WHO reports the number of cholera cases in Zimbabwe has exceeded its nightmare scenario of 60,000.
WHO assistant director-general, Eric Laroche, says cholera cases in Zimbabwe have soared passed the worst-case scenario of 60,000. He says this is far too high. “It is going to continue within Zimbabwe and there are chances that is going to continue and to spill over to also to neighboring countries. The number of deaths is rising to 3,000, 100 people since August, because the epidemic started in August and unless we have drastic action, we are not going to get out of this epidemic soon,” he said. “We have to make an extraordinary effort to response to an extraordinary situation…Otherwise, people are going to succumb and die even more.”
WHO reports the cholera epidemic has spread from the urban centers into the rural areas, where facilities for treating the disease are even more primitive than they are in the cities. It warns half of Zimbabwe’s population is at risk from cholera because of poor living conditions.
WHO says there is a total collapse of the country’s health care, water and sewage systems. It says health care workers are not reporting for work because they are not being paid. It identifies this as the single most important reason why an increasing number of cholera sufferers are dying.
WHO’s Cholera Task Force coordinator, Claire-Lise Chaignat, says it is particularly difficult to treat cholera in the rural areas because they are under-equipped and under-staffed. “The epidemic is really present in the provinces. It is jumping from one area to the other. It is mushrooming and that is why it is so out-of-control because it is very difficult to anticipate where the next outbreak is going to occur,” said Chaignat. “And, due to the fact that the whole infrastructure is decayed and it 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 within the same time.”
Under Mugabe’s rule, Zimbabwe has been in a state of financial and social collapse. Its inflation rate has spiraled out of control, making the local currency worthless. WHO’s Eric Laroche warns the outbreak will continue unabated unless political differences are put aside. He says Zimbabwe’s impoverished health workers must be paid and the country’s health system must be bolstered. He says all this takes money and very little is to be had.
The United Nations reports it has received no response to its $567 million humanitarian appeal for Zimbabwe this year.
