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Cholera outbreak
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-1
Monday January 2^nd 2006- Sunday January 8^th 2006

ALL media dismally failed to report adequately on the major cholera outbreak, which has reportedly claimed 14 lives in Manicaland, Harare and Mashonaland East.

The Press only devoted seven stories to the outbreak, five of which appeared in the government Press and two in the private papers.

ZBH carried five reports while the private radio stations aired four.

Notably, all stories on the matter were hazy and failed to independently establish the exact circumstances leading to the outbreak, when the first cases were detected, or when the first death occurred.

ZBH was the worst in this regard. Almost all its stories were event reports on Health Minister David Parirenyatwa’s tour of the affected areas. ZTV (5/1, 8pm), for example, belatedly reported on the death toll in the context of the minister’s statements that government "will supply villagers in Mushipe area with building materials to construct toilets and improve hygienic conditions".

The Herald and The Chronicle (3/1) not only carried brief announcements on the outbreak of the disease in Chivhu and the subsequent deaths of seven people in the area, they also downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak by presenting government as in control of the situation.

This was despite the papers’ reports quoting Parirenyatwa expressing "serious concerns" on the rapid spread of the disease, which he said indicated "a frightening pattern".

The Chronicle even placed the article on page three, preferring to lead with such stories as the fundraising show for the national soccer team and the arrest of a National Railways manager on allegations of smuggling maize seed and cement.

Even when The Herald (6/1) reported four fresh cholera deaths in Buhera, bringing the death toll to 11 and the number of infected to 181, the paper still allowed Deputy Health Minister Edwin Muguti to claim that "the situation is now under control".

The following day the paper failed to question the authorities’ readiness to deal with the outbreak when it reported the death of three more people in Harare.

The three were reportedly hospitalised at Harare Hospital where they were "put on drip and pronounced fit enough to go back home".

The paper did not investigate nor quantify the "several cases of cholera" that Parirenyatwa said "had been recorded in Harare".

Rather, The Herald (9/1) used it as an opportunity to defend government’s blitz last year on Zimbabwe’s urban poor by reporting Harare residents as having "commended government for embarking on the clean-up operation" saying the cholera outbreak affecting some parts of the city "would have been much worse under the cramped living conditions". The report underplayed the fact that at least 12 cholera patients had been detained at the Beatrice Road Infectious Diseases Hospital for treatment with one of them from Dzivarasekwa critically ill.

Apart from depicting government as in control of cholera, the government media carried 46 stories (official Press [12] and ZBH [34]) that sought to project the authorities as committed to resuscitating the country’s collapsing health sector. These included the donation of dozens of dialysis machines to Parirenyatwa, Mpilo, Chitungwiza and Bindura hospitals by Acting President Joice Mujuru (ZBH, 5/1, 8pm and The Herald, 6/1) and Minister Parirenyatwa’s announcement that government had allocated "a substantial amount of money in foreign currency" to Varichem to "enhance the production and provision of ARVs, which have become scarce and expensive" (ZTV, 6/1, 8pm). No effort was made to analyse how this state of affairs would affect those being treated with ARVs.

The official media largely relied on government comments in their coverage of cholera and problems besetting the health sector as shown in Figs 4 and 5. Ordinary people were mostly used to mask the crisis and quoted in the context of expressing gratitude over the authorities’ commitment to addressing the country’s health problems.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution in the government Press

Fig. 2 Voice distribution on ZBH

The private Press also failed miserably in their coverage of the cholera outbreak. The only two stories they carried were published by the Mirror stable (4/1 and 6/1) and given a similar perspective to those appearing in the government papers.

However, the four stories that private radio stations carried on cholera provided alternative views, disputing official claims on the situation in the affected areas. Studio 7 (4/1), for example, quoted an MDC official in Chikomba saying "people have no treatment" and were being attended to by "junior nurses". Unnamed doctors reportedly agreed, saying a shortage of medical personnel was hampering efforts to control the outbreak.

SW Radio Africa (4/1) noted that figures of the affected could be higher than the official ones as "many cases go unreported because people are seeking alternative methods of treatment that they can afford".

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