The Ministry of Health has recorded one cholera case in Lusaka’s Mtendere compound. The cholera patient is a three-year-old girl.
Minister of Health, Sylvia Masebo confirmed the development during a routine Covid-19 update in Lusaka yesterday.
Ms. Masebo said the girl is currently admitted to Kalingalinga clinic where she is receiving treatment.
She said the condition of the girl is stable.
Ms. Masebo said the Zambia National Public Health Institute (ZNPHI) is currently working to ascertain the extent of the infection and what could have caused the outbreak of the disease.
She has since urged the members of the public to maintain the highest standards of hygiene to prevent the further spread of the disease.
Zambia has in the last five years not recorded any cholera case.
And Ms. Masebo has disclosed that bilharzia has broken out in Chirundu district.
She said there are currently 99 active cases of bilharzia in Chirundu while over 70 others are under investigations.
The Minister explained that the cases of bilharzia have been recorded in children between the ages of six to 16 years.
Ms. Masebo attributed the outbreak of the disease to unsafe water and lack of adequate sanitation facilities in the district.
She disclosed that treatment has been already administered in the patients.
Meanwhile, Ms. Masebo has announced that 692 Covid-19 cases were recorded in the country last week.
She said one person died of Covid-10 while 17 were admitted to treatment centres.
Shut down Lusaka, shut it!
The annual Health Hazard Ceremony is upon us. It follows close on the heels of the Kuomboka Ceremony. Enough said.
Madam minister, Lusaka is a petri dish for infectious diseases such as cholera. Your wishy washy govt said you’d clear the city centre of street vendors for instance. Others such as Kitwe have succeeded to clear their cities of street vending and you hardly hear of such diseases. Its in lusaka where you fail to do anything. Were do you think the tens of thousands of people go to the toilet in the middle if a city with inadequate toilet facilities? You are becoming as incompetent as PF.
We’re actually lucky that it has been so late in breaking out.
Hygiene has been abandoned in the name of freedom.
The Ministry of Local Government must consider to provide grants to water utilities to enable them supply water to peri-urban and site & service communities at a lower rate. Usually cholera breaks out in these settlements due to water drawn from shallow wells. The department of public health must also make it a seasonal program to fumigate pit latrines every year or at least provide a bag of lime to each household to enable them do it on their own. It’s stressful and costly to treat cholera so let’s prevent it.
It is not surprising that cholera has broken out in Lusaka. Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company does not seem to been treating the water it is supplying residents with chlorine. There are alarming levels of faecal matter in the water being supplied at least to UNZA Handsworth area. A colleague from UNZA recently used the UNZA environmental engineering laboratory to test a sample of water being supplied to UNZA Handsworth area. The water was found to be contaminated. The report of that water analysis was shared with NWASCO who dispatched a team to come and do its own analysis. Again the water was found not to be chlorinated and had alarming levels of faecal matter. UNZA has been waiting to hear from NWASCO and to-date there has been no response. One just wonders why water being supplied to…
… UNZA residents and possibly many other Lusaka residents using the same supply lines, and who pay for it, is not being treated by Lusaka Water and Sewerage. Has Lusaka Water and Sewerage not been buying chlorine the same way Ministry of Health was not buying drugs? What could be the reason for not doing so? Is this not a matter of criminal negligence ladies and gentlemen?
Lusaka is a filthy city with filthy citizens!
YES YES HEALTH NEGLECTED IN THE NAME OF POLITICS
AN UNDISPUTBLE FACT
The Problem with Lusaka city is that it is too dirty and hence an epicentre of all water bone and air bone diseases and the UPND is doing nothing to get rid of street vendors who are the main culprits in generating gabbage in the city,the UPND government just talk and talk without any action,we are getting tired of this government`s rhetoric without any action,please remove all street vendors from the Lusaka CBD instead of you playing political appeasement,time for politics is long gone,it`s time to act!
Meanwhile the so called president was busy singing away and dancing like a little excited girl at kuomboka while the country was experiencing a crisis of cholera.
New Dawn govt asked its members to sing its achievements. Here is one Failure that should be noted. Cholera died during Lungu’s time
ONLY THE ECONOMY DIED IN LUNGU’S TIME
LET’S BE TRUTHFUL HERE
Education at primary school is the key……..
To ending the filth you see in Lusaka……..
Change that western eduction system for the Chinese one at primary school……….
To teach young Zambians ethics and morality….Labour and patronisim and environmental lessons ………
Within the first year of primary school children leaving school , there will be a noticible difference in zambia……
Here we go again! That’s Lusaka for you! The ‘b’ teams are always at the helm of our local councils! Despairing!
#plant a tree please.
This is being reactive instead of proactive. Several parts of Lusaka, and the whole country, are still extremely dirty, which triggers these kinds of deadly diseases. Recently, President Kagame was visiting with President HH. Did they discuss anything concerning how Zambia can implement the sanitation system that Rwanda has adopted? Zambia needs to heavily invest in proper sanitation and high standards of cleanliness. Not only does that prevent diseases like these, but also attracts tourists to the country, bringing in badly needed forex. Tourists hate a dirty country. Please, start working on making Zambia clean. That should be your number one priority. And eventually getting rid of unplanned shanty compounds should be another goal , replacing them with affordable high-rise…
,#6 Ayatollah. Sometimes I sit to find out where the council in my childhood town used to get the money for the excellent services. Each year our houses would be painted from roof to bottom. Water was available 24/7. Anti malaria campaigns were as normal as breathing air, shortage of drugs in health institutions was not in our dictionary. These were so numerous I can’t remember all. Where did we go wrong?
@16 – We are regressing. That’s the long and short of it!
#plant a tree please.
What a useless government….
If there is sh+t in drinking water in upmarket areas like Hansworth what about Kanyama, Kalingalinga, John Howard, O god help us. This is the 21st century we cant be having medieval diseases like cholera in a civilised country.
people are saying the govt has done alot in 7months. Kindly help me on what they have done. Im failing to point at one! Pleae I need help . Im failing to convince people who are saying they havent done anything