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Opposition run Harare City Council continues to expose residents to waterborne disease by continuously pumping untreated water across the city.
The city has also been criticized for casting a blind eye on sewer bursts and uncollected garbage.
In just five days, the high-density suburb has recorded 3 confirmed and 11 suspected cholera cases.
Budiriro 1 residents fear a repeat of the 2008 cholera outbreak after shocking cholera statistics begin to emerge from the high-density suburb.
The Local Authority has since closed some boreholes and wells they believed the disease could be emanating from.
City of Harare Epidemiologist, Dr Michael Vere said they have activated emergency Cholera response systems.
“We have got 11 suspected Cholera cases but amongst these cases, three have been confirmed already.
“The first cases were recorded on April 22, – of a 15-year-old Child who stays in Budiriro 1 and has got no history of travel to any of the areas affected so far by Cholera in Zimbabwe or in the region,” he said during a Media Science Café organized by the Health Communicators Forum in Zimbabwe (HCF) in the capital recently.
He said they have since launched an investigation into the possible source of the infection.
“What has been done is that we have taken water samples from the water sources of these 11 cases and there is a common source which is well at one of the households of these cases.
“We are suspecting this water source which we have since closed,” he said, adding that they are also collecting water samples from surrounding boreholes.
Budiriro has been Zimbabwe’s Cholera Hotspot since the 2008 outbreak that claimed hundreds of people.
As of December 9, at least 6 141 suspected cases of cholera and 775 deaths had been recorded since August in two-thirds of the country’s 62 districts.
This is a case fatality rate of 4.8 percent.
Residents represented by Harare Residents Trust (HRT) Director, Mr Precious Shumba criticized the local municipality for not prioritizing Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) initiatives.
“Cholera occurs sporadically where water supply, sanitation, food safety, and hygiene are inadequate (City of Harare, 2009).
Vending sites have no water and sanitation facilities. There are no toilets or water sources to service most vendors in the communities.
“Water is in short supply across the suburbs with residents largely dependent on community boreholes and shallow wells, especially in Mabvuku, Tafara, Glen Norah, Chitungwiza, Epworth, Budiriro, Glen View.
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