Speaking from the agency’s HQ in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare today, Save the Children’s country director Rachel Pounds said: “If anything is certain in the chaos of Zimbabwe today it is that the cholera outbreak is not under control.”
Thursday 11 December 2008
“According to the latest figures 775 people have died so far. Save the Children knows this is an underestimate – not least because the figures do not include areas in which we work and where we know there have been many unrecorded deaths.
“Also, the percentage of people who are dying having contracted cholera in the first place is way higher than normal for this disease, in some areas. With even the most basic health care on hand, you would expect to see a death rate of only one or two percent. In some areas of Zimbabwe a third of those who have contracted the infection are dying.”
Ms Pounds added that the crisis was almost certainly worsening. “Reliable figures are hard to come by, but there is much evidence out there that this crisis is growing, not diminishing, especially as we know there are many people who can’t get to cholera centres. Given that this is a disease spread by unclean water and exacerbated by hunger which weakens victims, this problem has clearly not gone away. Water and health services have collapsed and more than half the 10 million population needs emergency food aid. This deadly disease will continue to spread unless we get more money and more resources to halt the contamination and treat victims promptly.”
We are urging the international community to listen to aid agencies working in Zimbabwe and to Zimbabweans themselves living with the horror of hunger and cholera. “It is ordinary families who are bearing the brunt of this crisis, and it is to them the world must listen,” said Ms Pounds. “They should listen to the mothers whose babies have died, and to the children waiting outside health clinics to see if their mothers or fathers will come out alive. That’s the reality here.”
Our 200-strong team in Zimbabwe is helping to provide drugs to treat cholera and educating communities on how to avoid infection, as well as providing food so that safe cholera treatment camps can be set up to prevent further contamination.
We’ve worked in Zimbabwe for nearly 25 years. Our work at the moment is focusing on feeding close to 200,000 people, and helping families prepare for the future by distributing seeds, small livestock and helping to set up vegetable gardens.
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Find out more about the crisis in Zimbabwe.