CoH issues water availability schedule for December

The City of Harare (CoH) has released a water availability schedule for the month of December 2023.

This is coming at a time, the country is facing a Cholera outbreak which has already claimed thousand lives to date.

In recent years, there have been serious outbreaks of waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and others.

From 2008 to 2009, Zimbabwe suffered a serious cholera outbreak with over 90,000 cases reported in 60 out of 62 districts, resulting in about 4,300 deaths.

Other neighbouring southern African states, such as Malawi, South Africa, and Mozambique, also frequently experience cholera outbreaks. Severe weather conditions, such as floods, cyclones, and droughts also make it harder to get clean water creating the perfect conditions for cholera to spread.

In June 2023, the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society (ZRCS) requested CHF 464,595 from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Disaster Response Emergency Fund3 to fight the cholera outbreak, which showed a positive response in the targeted districts.

However, the outbreak has spread to new districts, prompting the ZMRC to move the current situation in its scenario planning to a “worst-case scenario”.

As such, the IFRC has, therefore, been asked to launch this Emergency Appeal for CHF 3 million to enable the ZRCS to further scale-up their response, with 550,455 people targeted across the most affected and vulnerable districts and their communities.

Zwnews