
The World Health Organization has confirmed that more than 3,000 people have died of cholera in Zimbabwe. This clearly points to the fact that the waterborne disease is out of control by health experts. The epidemic adds misery to an already desperate country wracked by political strife and a seemingly insurmountable economic crisis. To add to a pile of woes, doctors and nurses have been on strike for months, fighting for salary that is not in their grossly inflated local currency.
Zimbabwe is a country that is in shortage of food, fuel, circulating money, electricity, potable water supply, and sane leadership. It has a political opposition party that dreams of being able to share power with a dictator, as well as an aging tyrant who hangs on to the power that he got as an erstwhile freedom fighter. This despot is also in a constant state of denial that his country is not ailing, even going to the lengths of declaring that the cholera epidemic has slowed down.
The five-month long cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe is the result of total breakdown in social services such as water supply, environmental sanitation, and health service system. The rainy season has also aggravated the problem because of the flooding.
Via CNN
Posted by GSerrano on January 28, 2009 in News + Politics · 0 Comment