HEALTH experts said this week government must invoke necessary legal instruments to bolster ongoing efforts to combat the spread of cholera, including enforcing a complete ban of gatherings for up two months.
They spoke as official data showed that Harare Province alone had recorded 6 866 cumulative suspected cases by yesterday morning. Cases were also rising across the country.
Worries over the effects of cholera deepened after reports that certain apostolic churches were refusing to seek treatment despite outbreaks among their congregants.
There were recent reports that four people died of cholera at a religious shrine in Beitbridge after a pregnant Gwanda woman, who had contracted the disease, went to the shrine to seek help.
Reports said she had refused to be assisted by health officials due to religious beliefs.
Itai Rusike, the executive director at Community Working Group on Health, urged the Ministry of Health and Child Care to enforce provisions of the law to combat the spread of the epidemic.
“All measures to prevent and end cholera are within the purview of the government, be it central or local government,” Rusike said.
“The religious groups can only cooperate when the government and local authorities are playing their part by providing safe water, safe sanitation and hygienic waste disposal. There is need for sustained community centred cholera awareness campaigns and deliberate efforts should be made to engage the leadership of certain religious groups with low health seeking behaviours in order to encourage their members to seek for treatment whenever they suspect cholera infection and government should provide leadership and stewardship in the engagement of religious groups.
“So we have a Zimbabwe Multi-Sectoral Cholera Elimination Plan 2019 - 2028 (which is in line with) government’s target of an upper middle income economy. But their actions or inaction about cholera and other preventable diseases and health are quite contrary. They need to retain health workers, equip our public health institutions and provide water, sanitation and hygiene services” he said.
In an interview with the Zimbabwe Independent, Hamadziripi Dube, a medical doctor, said it was the government’s duty to control gatherings.
“Cholera is transmitted through contaminated water and food. Gatherings during this pandemic must be prohibited, especially in areas where water sanitation and ablution services are poor. Cholera is controllable as long such gatherings are stopped with immediate effect.
“It is the duty of the government to control gatherings after a thorough inspection is done by the ministry of health and police. When people die at church gatherings, the responsibility lies with the government not the church leadership. Therefore, all the gatherings must be controlled by national authority.
“I advise the government to temporarily stop the mass gatherings for a month or two to control the number of cholera cases, which are on the rise. Emergency cholera clinics must be erected in every district,” he said.