Public health officials during a visit to Glendale. (Columbus Mavhunga/DW)
Zimbabwe’s ministry of health and child care has announce that the current cholera outbreak in the country has affected the districts of Bikita, Bindura, Chiredzi, Chipinge, Kariba, Goromonzi, Mazowe and Shamva.
The farming town Glendale in the Mazowe district, located about 70 kilometers north of Harare, is one of the epicentres of the outbreak. Residents there are appealing to the government to take urgent action to end the spread of the disease.
Glendale residents are being forced to navigate pools of sludge after the government left burst pipes neglected for months. Human waste carrying disease agents have apparently been contaminating freshwater sources in Glendale and beyond.
On December 26, 2024, 10 members of one family in Glendale had to be rushed to the Tsungubvi Cholera Treatment Centre after they showed symptoms of the waterborne disease.
The Nyirongo family had been relying for years on their shallow well as their main source of water, but sewage had lately been seeping into the underground water supply as rains persisted across the country.
“It rained heavily for two consecutive days on December 24 and 25 (…) leading to the contamination of our well with sewage, even before that, possibly,” 71-year-old Erecta Nyirongo told media.
“We hope they will supply us with clean water going forward to avoid these diseases.”
Throughout Zimbabwe — including the capital Harare, there are no reliable water sources at the moment, as raw sewage has been flowing into water sources amid the overall state of disrepair of the water system.
Sleiman Timios Kwidini, Zimbabwe’s deputy minister of health and child care, recently visited the Mazowe district to assess the extent of the cholera outbreak after one life was claimed there by the illness.
Kwidini says that the government has partnered with other organisations to drill two boreholes in Glendale.
Kwidini believes that some local wells can remain in use as the government is planning to provide “tablets which are going to assist killing the bacteria, which is found in water”.
“Also, we are encouraging our community to boil water, even if it’s coming from a clean or protected water source (…) so that we reduce chances of getting cholera.”
The deputy minister further highlighted that after inspecting toilets in communal ablution blocks, she found that the facilities “are not properly sited”.
“So we have agreed that we are going to site them where it is proper, so that they do not mix where they get water and the toilets.”
It is unclear, however, how long it might take to roll out these improvement plans.
Hygiene practices
Kudzai Masunda, a public health specialist at the private voluntary health organisation JF Kapnek Zimbabwe, is also calling for an improvement of hygienic practices in households and at the community level as part of overall efforts to contain cholera.
“Cholera is mainly a waterborne disease and also a feco-orally communicable disease, meaning people get infected from what they consume. Thus, hygienic practices are important,” said Masunda, who also serves as the secretary general of the Zimbabwe College of Public Health Physicians think tank.
“If we want to eliminate cholera, we need to improve on water and sanitation within our suburbs and rural areas since the previous cholera outbreaks have also happened in the rural areas,” he added.
“One of the short-term measures that have already taken place to eliminate cholera is the use of vaccines to ensure we reduce incidences of cholera for at least three to four years while we embark on water and sanitation improvements that need to be done.”
Masunda added that the whole of Africa has been hit by the disease, with cholera cases reported in Burundi, Cameroon, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Zimbabwe’s last cholera outbreak according to the WHO was in 2023, with all the country’s 10 provinces reporting instances affecting a total of 62 districts.
During that outbreak, the country recorded 34,549 suspected cases, 4,217 confirmed cases and 33,831 recoveries.
The country’s worst recorded cholera epidemic was in 2008 and 2009, which resulted in nearly 100,000 confirmed cases and 4,288 deaths, according to the WHO.
