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Diseases wreak havoc at Hopley settlement
Caipas Chimhete, The Standard (Zimbabwe)
May 07, 2006

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/viewinfo.cfm?id=149&siteid=1&archive=1

COMMUNICABLE diseases, mainly TB and cholera are rife at the Hopley farm settlement in Harare where the government dumped victims of "Operation Murambatsvina" last year.

A health progress report prepared by the Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) reveals that the settlement, accommodating about 1 600 households, has been hit by a number of diseases.

These include tuberculosis, scabies, pneumonia, malaria and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

People live in crowded conditions and in many cases in makeshift shelter with plastic sheeting. They have neither clean supply of water nor toilets, says the report compiled by the organisation's project co-ordinator, Simon Ejore.

From January to March this year, the international organisation says it treated 5 324 patients, most of these with skin and respiratory infections. A total of 110 suspected cases of TB were recorded and 30 of these were confirmed.

"In the same period, MSF diagnosed 30 falciparum malaria cases and many sexually transmitted infections, some linked to prostitution which in turn is partly caused by lack of food in the settlement," says the report.

MSF, an international medical association that provides free treatment and medication to needy populations, says lack of food continues to plague Hopley families, who lost all their belongings when government demolished their houses in the city.

Some patients, says Ejore, said they turned to commercial sex work to enable themselves to earn money to feed their families.

"MSF has also attended an unexpected high number of trauma cases, some linked to looking for food (children falling out of fruit trees), but more linked to violence provoked by conflicts over limited resources such as food supply," says the report.

Hopley Farm Settlement has no regular supply of water and currently has no toilets, exposing the community to communicable diseases such as cholera.

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