Friday, March 29, 2024

Government allows Churches outside Cholera hit areas to congregate

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Minister of Health, Hon Dr Chitalu Chilufya
Minister of Health, Hon Dr Chitalu Chilufya

The Government has relaxed its ban on Church meetings and has allowed Church members outside the Cholera epicenters to congregate.

The state has however advised Churches against busing members from areas that are not seriously affected by Cholera.

These are some of the resolutions arrived at after a multi-sectoral team assembled to handle the Cholera epidemic met with some Church leaders and representatives from the Churches Health Association of Zambia (CHAZ) to discuss the issue of Church congregations outside the epicenter of the Cholera epidemic.

There has been an outcry from mainly Evangelical Pastors over the ban on Church meetings in Lusaka following the Cholera outbreak.

The ban saw armed military personal storm Churches over the weekend and dispersed gatherings, much to the anger and annoyance of some Church goers.

But Health Minister Chitalu Chilufya has advised that Churches who are outside the epicenter can congregate.

Dr Chilufya said Churches must however ensure that sanitary conditions and standards are heightened including hand washing facilities, wash soap or hand sanitisers at the entrance and near sanitation facilities must be introduced where these are not already available.

He said Churches should use the church gatherings as opportunities to educate congregants on matters relating to Cholera.

The Health Minister has also implored all relevant law enforcement agencies to monitor the situation.

Meanwhile, Dr Chilufya has disclosed that 95 new Cholera cases were recorded in the last 24 Hours, 83 of them in Lusaka, bringing the cumulative figure to 2905 cases recorded.

He said one death was also recorded bringing the cumulative number of deaths to 61 in Lusaka and 67 country wide.

And Dr Chilufya this morning flagged off the Oral Cholera Vaccine programme in Lusaka in an effort to contain the spread of Vibrio Cholerae.

Dr. Chilufya also vaccinated himself in the company of Kanyama Member of Parliament Elizabeth Phiri, UN Resident Coordinator Janet Rogan and Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet Christopher Mvunga.

The exercise which has received positive response from Kanyama residents is targeted to capture 2 million residents.

20 COMMENTS

  1. Iwe Chilufya, are you the religious minister?
    You have failed your President on cholera, just resign

    • “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” Proverbs 14

      You should have turned to God first instead of Zambia Breweries.

    • @Fwebena Ngumbo, you took my words. These PF, who the hell is in charge:
      – minister of religious
      – minister of defense
      – minister of health
      – minister of environment and sanitation
      – minister of local government
      – yesterday was minister of Tourism

      Disaster in PF

      Where is minister of disaster management, it used o be Inonge.

    • Christians are admonished to be “the salt of the earth.” Accordingly, churches must be challenged to uphold higher sanitary standards. There is a lot of religion practiced in cleanliness – simply that.

  2. Those Adventists who like sharing chibwantu will only have themselves to blame if anything happens, they need to change their habits

  3. @Nostradamus
    ubwafya Ba Chilufya wants to be the next PF President, so he is the ‘jack of all trades’ ‘master of none’ in PF. This is what the Tongas call Kulibonesha ta!

  4. Comment:CHOLERA HIS A NAME, THE BIBLE SAYS THERE IS A NAME ABOVE EVERY OTHER NAME, AND AT THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST EVERY KNEEL SHALL BOW AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL CONFESS, SO EVERY CHOLERA AS LONG IT HAS A NAME IT HAS BOWED TO THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH. LET US KEEP ON CONGREGATING, WHAT SHALL SEPERATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD IS IT CHOLERA OR GOVERNMENT? NO ONE, BECAUSE IN ALL THESE THINGS WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERERS IN CHRIST JESUS.

    • Instead of calling others docile, come home and fight you coward. You ran away from the economic hardships so I am sure you can also ran away from a fight

  5. What is needed here Zambians is to treat polluted water . Also put up temporal removable or mobile toilets in the compounds where the pandemic is. You are treating and cleaning but others are eating while defecating wrongly. Have you visited the Pit latrines around Kanyama, Misis, Mandevu , Chawama etc? You will be shocked. Cholera is not in town but in the densely populated residences.
    Give them Plastics suitable for defecating and then the council people pick up all that early in the morning and evening to be thrown very far from the people.

    • My friend people have just thrown hygiene to the wind. During colonial days as many as one hundred households would once abulution block and never did you find faeces outside the building or off the furrow that carried the waste from the building to wherever it ended up. Making the place dirty would result in the culprit to lose their job on the mines. And somehow culprits would always be found out. In short we need strict enforcers of hygiene not these people who only get paid even without reporting for work.

  6. Why was the cry mainly from the evangelicals? I hope the lifting of the ban doesn’t include those who use ifikopa as places of assembly. These structures have no abolition facilities.

  7. Bushiri’s church has been banned in Botswana with effect from yesterday. Himself will now require a visa to enter that country which means he’s effectively barred from entry.

  8. So government leaders do not think thought their decisions well. Why the back and forth in policies and regulations?

  9. In the first place it was wrong to ban churches from congregating. Bars which have been allowed to meet are more prone to spread cholera than churches. I still advocate that Dr Chilufya, Vincent Mwale should be fired but resigning is not in their thinking. #GOvin&chilu

  10. Instead of firing Chilufya and vincent. The whole thing is just a circus. I can’t even hear minister of religious affairs say anything sure? Do these Bishops in politics really think? Even bene outspoken bishop Banda is quiet sure and yet he has a huge following in lusaka and his followers bali ndwi? Where is this country going to?

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