Harare (New Ziana) – The government has descended on Buhera district as it pulls all the stops to try and close the tap of new Cholera cases, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Minister, Dr Jenfan Muswere has said.
Following a visit to the district by a delegation led by Health and Child Care Minister, Dr Douglas Mombeshora on October 14, Cabinet on Tuesday ordered that doctors be deployed to visit all cholera treatment centres’ in the region; more staff be mobilized to support the treatment centres; cholera treatment camps and oral rehydration points closer to the community be established and that eight boreholes be drilled in the district.
In his post Cabinet briefing, Dr Muswere said Cabinet had also ordered the intensification of community engagement and capacity building of traditional and religious leaders on public health measures to control cholera, supervision of all funerals and the heightening of cholera education in the district.
Buhera district in Manicaland is the epicentre of the latest outbreak of the highly contagious water-borne disease which has since spread to 41 districts around the country and affected close to 5 000 people with more than 30 succumbing to the illness.
Buhera district has reported a cumulative 726 suspected cholera cases, 27 cumulative cholera deaths with a case fatality rate of 3.7 percent and currently has 46 people admitted in treatment centres across the district whose epicentre is Murambinda Growth Point and its environs.
The main drivers of the cholera outbreak include lack of safe water as people are drawing water from rivers.
Dr Muswere said to forestall a possible increase in cholera cases around the country, Cabinet had ordered that there be intensified risk communication and community engagement, tests kits be sourced for the rural community centres, all boreholes be fully equipped and the documentation of all deaths and burials be supervised with intensified public health measures.
New Ziana
