Minister of Health, Hon Dr Chitalu Chilufya has appealed to all business houses to cooperate fully when ever there is need for their businesses to be inspected and checked for possible cholera contamination stating that his teams were mandated by law to ensure that food being consumed by the public was safe.
The Minister was speaking to the press this morning at Ndeke House.
“To our friends in the business community that have been affected by closures or certain notices, we want to make an appeal for maximum cooperation. We are going to continue inspecting various trading places and hotels and if found wanting, we will close to protect the public. We are mandated by the law to ensure that the food our public consumes is safe.” He said.
And the Minister stated that they had put in place mechanisms for re-inspection and once they noted adherence, compliance and meeting of standards demanded from the usual inspection, they would reopen the businesses.
Meanwhile Dr Chilufya has paid glowing tribute to all well wishers who had come on board and contributed significantly to the fight against the Cholera epidemic.
Yesterday Trade Kings made a Significant donation in material and monetary form totalling to K2 000 000 . Today ZRA contributed Vehicles to be used towards the mitigation of the pandemic.
“For the new treatment centre at the national heros stadium, we have directed a further increase in the number of health workers to avert deaths.” He said.
“We have increased the nurse patient ratio to 1 to 2 from 1 to 7 . This then means that the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health who has commenced as directed, the provisional recruitment of nurses and environmental health technologists will work closely with the technical team to ensure that we deploy enough nurses to National Heroes Stadium Health Facility. This is to ensure we dont loose any more lives. One more death is too much. ” said the Minister.
You have to wait till the situation is out of control….ba mambala imwe !
Minister, you have failed. There are several reasons, one the people you tasked to control the outbreak when it just started are incompetent, but you appointed them and by proxy you too are incompetent. On moral grounds, you should resign. Chitalu, could you also comment on the the corruption allegations in the procurement process.
Does this mean you were not doing this before, as a quality control measure?
HH has been spreading Cholera. That’s how much he wants this Presidency!
Why recruit more nurses, this cholera will not end because people need jobs. There are enough nurses in prisons who will gladly work in exchange for freedom, or even few days on free…..
Equally ZNS are ready to help.
Its like Peace-Keepers they never want to war to end, they need allowances and those free food.
Koswe should resign. The very least two baby Koswes; the Minister above who is talking crap masquerading to be a doctor and his colleague minister of local government should go. Zambia is a failed State. Cholera in the 21st century. Atase!
We told these empty tins about ridding the streets of vendors 7 years ago but they never listened…now this visionless lazy loaf in State House instructs the Army to clean the streets you think he is a genius. What happens after Cholera is contained?
We appeal to the president to do the following:
1. Stop the one-man restructuring currently being undertaken by Dr.Chilufya at MOH bcoz it is to blame for inadequate initial response in August when we had only 5 cases of Cholera
2. Re-instate the Old structure of MOH and bring back experienced directors who were removed unfairly.
3. Re-introduce Department of Communicable Diseases at HQ and PMO. This was scrapped by the current Minister.
This the main reseasin why MOH failed to combat cholera when cases were few.
DOES IT MEAN YOU NEVER USED TO INSPECT THESE HOTELS AND EATING PLACES?IF YOU NEVER USED TO, DOES IT ALSO MEAN THAT FOR A LONG TIME THE MINISTERS RESPONSIBLE WITH THEIR MINISTRIES AND CIVIL SERVANTS ALL WENT TO SLEEP WHILE BEING PAID FREE SALARIES AND WAGES?
CC the Minister I health shud have been announcing his resignation not telling people what to do. He doesn’t deserve to be heard or to issue directives. So far Dora “Army Worm “, Vincent “Cholera the Second alias Soweto Market ” and Chilufya “Cholera the First” don’t deserve to remain in cabinet. They have failed
Honourable Minister, now you are washing your dirt linen in public. What in the world have you been doing to allow such an outbreak of cholera in this day and age?
Does MOH have an IT department? Information dissemination is very poor! Does the ministry have a website to post regular updates? Yes the minister may occasionally give important updates but the MOH spokesperson should handle most of this communication. Information sharing is very important in such situations. We cannot be relying on news websites for updates. Please do something about this!!
These people are kaponya thieves the first thing that comes to mind is looking for ways to line their pockets in procurement deals…they are supposed to have a main disaster command center and several mobile pilot center vehicles around the city.
It had to take a disaster for them to do what they should do on a regular basis. Cholera could have been avoided and prevented if authorities (and citizens!) were more conscious about implement hygiene in homes and piblic places.
Let’s learn a lesson out of this and keep our city and country clean.
They never learn.
Management by crisis , they call it .
These are incompetent people who operate by being reactive rather than proactive. They needed to be identifying risks well in advance and put in mitigation strategies to prevent them from occurring in the first place.
And give it few months after this disaster, we will be back where we started. They need to put in long term measures that will stand the test of time. For example eradicate street vending permanently; make these lazy soldiers who never fight do a clean up on a regular basis, every fortnight or monthly; etc.
But to think no head will roll over this national embarrassmentbis beyond belief. Someone ought to own up and resign or be fired by the appointing authorities.
What a country this is!
Reactive useless reckless govt, you let people sell fresh meat on the streets, even kebabs …now you want to start inspecting establishments where you have issued licenses. Even this inspections has been a total mess where you are issuing incorrect statements about results.
This is another reason why doctors should be employed in hospitals not behind desks….go to Developed countries you will not find a doctor as a minister of health.
Check the water……the water tables in Lusaka are contaminated with unlined pit latrines and sewers ……
Dr chilufya look at implementing simple water purification using ultraviolet light costing less than $5,000 per compound.
a simple UV light bulb kills 99.98% of water born pathogens…
@Spaka, that’s how you treat your water?
This amounts to inspecting the jet engine and fuel gauges when the plane is mid flight in the air.No rating system for eateries,no regular inspection and minimum training required in food safety for any quark opening an eatery.
Simply go to a Shoprite store visit the cold salad section and buy chicken salad …you will get a shock of your life in that the chicken is off as its been there for days.
Cholera was the Inspector General. The rest of these, including this Honourable Minister, are impostors and hypocrites. Thank you very much Inspector General Cholera, for being our guest this year.
I only hope as you are ‘inpsecting’ someone is also inspecting…
Kikikikiki i cant serve in a government that inpsects. I quit!
Bwana Chilufya i wonder why Rwanda ,Italy ,Japan or USA have no cholera? Could it be that they all have order,discipline and public health control mechanisms with integrity – the things lacking in your Zambia? Resign kaponya you’ve failed -all you’ve got is chaotic markets ,corruption & incompetence =cholera.
Cholera outbreak in Lusaka just indicates how incompetent Chilufya and his team at the ministry of health have been. He has had misplaced priorities, buying expensive ambulances at the expense of Public health.
Once the rains are gone ..it will be back to normal…come next year the same thing again!!
Currently, there is Cholera in two places in the world – Yemen and Lunguland.
One is at war, while the other is just mismanaged. What a shame!
They used to be a department of Communicable Diseases Control at both MOH HQ and Provincial Health Office. This department was introduced by American CDC and people in that department were very competent. They were capacitated by CDC. That is the reason you never heard of Cholera in past 4 year. This department was abolished when the current Minister of Health tooj over.
Good job! The goodness is that that loser will never be president!
An uneducated loser wanted to tour cholera infested place. Under Five reasoning.
Local government and the Ministry of Health have failed the people of Zambia. If ECL was sane he would be thinking of replacing Chilufya and local govt minister. Chilufya got rid of experienced health care managers and replaced them with his cronies this late and chaotic response to cholera outbreak. Local govt is just a mess which needs rebuilding.
Why are you avoiding Chinese restauants and production centers. They are culprit as amongst the most dirty and most corrupt people on the planet.