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Zimbabwe: Harare residents' body warns of fresh cholera outbreak
ZimOnline
April 28, 2006

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/YAOI-6PA2HK?OpenDocument&rc=1&cc=zwe

HARARE -- The Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) has told a parliamentary committee that the city could be hit by a fresh outbreak of cholera and dysentery due to the deteriorating conditions in the capital.

In submissions made to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development on Tuesday, CHRA chief executive officer, Barnabas Mangodza said the "city was sitting on a time-bomb" that could explode any minute.

"Harare is a time bomb for cholera and dysentery outbreaks. The experiences of yesteryear are a classical point," said Mangodza.

The association warned that uncollected garbage and burst sewer pipes in poor suburbs like Mbare and other suburbs in Harare, were posing serious health hazards to residents.

"Municipal sweepers dump refuse between blocks of flats in Mbare attracting swarms of flies, increasing the chances of the residents' contracting communicable diseases like cholera and dysentery.

"Sewer bursts are almost everywhere with sewerage flowing from the top floors down, posing serious health hazards to residents," Mangodza told the committee.

Harare is in a state of semi-decay after years of under-funding and mismanagement. Burst sewer pipes and heaps of uncollected garbage because of a severe six-year old fuel crisis, are now a common sight in Harare which was once adored as one of the model cities in Africa in the early 1980s.

Earlier this year, 14 people including some from Harare's poor suburbs died of cholera with several others being hospitalised after suffering from the disease. - ZimOnline

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