By Pauline Odhiambo
Raw sewage flows unchecked in Adella Ngonidzashe's neighbourhood of Kuwadzana on the outskirts of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.
"Even the tap water is green; we don't drink it. We use it to flush the toilet," the 43-year-old tells TRT Afrika.
Although Adella does whatever it takes to protect her family from the perils of poor sanitation in the vicinity, cholera somehow sneaks into her home.
The pesky bacterial infection is an annual scourge that has laid low 8,000-odd people in Zimbabwe this year.
Adella's eight-year-old daughter Kupashe is among those to have taken ill, possibly contracting the bug while out playing near their house.
"When I saw my daughter going to the toilet twice in a short period, I knew something was amiss and quickly took her to the clinic," says Adella. "She was vomiting, too. They gave her a salt and sugar solution, plus painkillers and antibiotics."
This is the second time Adella's family has been affected by a cholera outbreak in the southern African nation. The last such occasion was in 2008-2009 when more than 98,000 people were diagnosed with the disease across the country. At least 4,000 patients died.
Since February this year, the health authorities have reported more than 150 deaths due to suspected cholera.
Highly infectious
Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal illness caused by the Vibrio cholerae bacteria infecting the intestines. The bacteria enters the body through ingestion of contaminated food or water and can kill within a short period of time if left untreated. The good news is that cholera is usually easily treatable, mainly by rehydrating patients.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least 1 in 10 people who get sick with cholera experience severe symptoms like diarrhoea, vomiting and leg cramps, where the rapid loss of body fluids often leads to dehydration and shock.
Cholera has often broken out across Zimbabwe in recent years with deadly consequences, spurred by terrible sanitation systems in many townships of the capital region and beyond.
"There are too many open sewage outlets near which our children play. I suspect that's where my daughter got the disease from," says Adella.
Cholera hotspots
In the Kuwadzana area and other cholera hotspots, health authorities have warned that even water sourced from boreholes and shallow wells, which many residents depend on for their household needs, may no longer be safe to drink.
Cholera has hit the country's ten provinces, according to health minister Douglas Mombeshora, who has been visiting the affected regions since the start of the fresh outbreak.
At the Kuwadzana Polyclinic, cholera patients line up in a special tent set up for them and are given a cup of rehydrating sugar and salt solution on arrival.
Although Kupashe has fully recovered and is back in school, the cholera challenge still weighs on the minds of Zimbabweans forced to live in squalor. Heaps of garbage and untreated sewage are eyesores across Harare neighbourhoods.
"There's not much we can do to contain these outbreaks besides washing our hands thoroughly with soap," Tecla Bomba, a vendor in Harare's Chituinguiza township, tells TRT Afrika.
"We don't always have tap water. We get water once or twice a week, and sometimes we might go three to four months without water," says Tecla, whose son battled a bout of cholera in 2015.
Tecla takes time to wash her fruits and vegetables thoroughly, but the risk of cholera and other water-borne diseases remains. "We fetch water from unprotected sources like wells. I think that's where my son got this infection.”
Chituinguiza is one of 17 cholera-prone districts in Zimbabwe. The 2023 outbreak started in Buhera district, another hotspot, while more cases have been reported in 45 of the country's 64 districts this year.
Continental challenge
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that cholera cases in Africa are rising exponentially amid a global surge. The continent accounted for 21% of cases and 80% of deaths across the globe between 2014 and 2021, according to data from WHO.
Harare's municipal authorities have been distributing water treatment tablets to residents to fight the diarrhoeal disease. The government has also started restricting public gatherings and food vending nationwide, besides monitoring burials in all areas affected by cholera.
