Measles Now out of Control in Zimbabwe
by Sebastian Nyamhangambiri
HARARE – United Nations agencies and the Zimbabwe government on Monday appealed for more than US$8 million to combat a measles outbreak they said has “reached crisis proportion” and was spinning out of control.
“It is true that measles in Zimbabwe is now out of control given that it is now in all parts of the country,” UNICEF director in Zimbabwe Peter Salama told journalists in Harare yesterday.
“We can now say all children (in Zimbabwe) are at risk to die of measles . . . this is symbolic of the breakdown of the (health) infrastructure in Zimbabwe. This is similar to what happened during the outbreak of cholera in 2008,” Salama said – words that should remind Zimbabwe’s ruling coalition to stop bickering and focus on rebuilding the country’s health sector and economy.
Health Minister Henry Madzorera said the $8.4 million that the government was asking for would be used to immunisation programmes to contain the outbreak that has to date claimed at least 183 people, mainly children under five and many who had never been vaccinated.
“This programme requires resources so that we contain the outbreak (of measles),” said Madzorera.
The Health Minister said the disease had been mainly confined to families of some religious groups whose followers refuse conventional medical treatment but he said it had since spread to more areas, and appeared to be getting out of control as 1 843 people had been affected countrywide.
Measles is an infection caused by a virus – and mainly affects children under five years of age. It can be prevented through vaccination.
“The immunisation programme in Zimbabwe has over the years declined due to the economic hardships that we faced,” said Madzorera, adding that an exodus of doctors and nurses who left Zimbabwe for neighbouring countries and overseas where pay and living conditions are better had also crippled the government’s immunisation programmes.
Madzorera said the government was working on a law which would make it compulsory for children to be immunized to prevent parents from resisting immunisation of children on religious or cultural grounds.
In 2008, a cholera outbreak claimed close to 5 000 lives as bankruptcy local authorities failed to supply clean drinking water to residents or provide garbage collection services.
The cholera epidemic – that the WHO labelled the worst in Africa in more than 15 years – was only brought under control after international aid agencies moved in with water treatment chemicals as well as medicines and health support staff to treat the disease.
Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government has promised to rebuild the economy and restore basic services such as water supplies, health and education that had virtually collapsed after years of neglect and under-funding.
But incessant bickering between President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC is holding back the administration, while rich Western nations have refused to provide direct financial support demanding more political reforms before they can loosen the purse strings.
zimonline
Posted by Dave Fish Eagle
on March 30, 2010. Filed under Health & Well Being.
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