|
 Thousands of people were trapped for more than a week in submerged
villages without access to clean water after Cyclone Idai smashed
into the Mozambican port city of Beira on March 14, causing
catastrophic flooding and killing more than 700 people across three
countries in southeast Africa.
With tens of thousands of displaced people moved to makeshift camps,
relief efforts have increasingly focused on containing outbreaks of
waterborne and infectious diseases.
David Wightwick, a senior member of the WHO's response team in Beira,
told reporters that seven clinics had been set up in Mozambique to
treat cholera patients and that two more would be ready soon.
"We have 900,000 doses of oral cholera vaccines which are coming in
on Monday, and we will start a vaccination campaign as soon as
possible next week," Wightwick said.
Cholera is endemic to Mozambique, which has had regular outbreaks
over the past five years. About 2,000 people were infected in the
last outbreak, which ended in February 2018, according to the WHO.
But the scale of the damage to Beira's water and sanitation
infrastructure, coupled with its dense population, have raised fears
that another epidemic would be difficult to put down.
Wightwick could not confirm whether there had yet been any deaths
from cholera in Mozambique.
A Reuters reporter saw the body of a dead child being brought out of
an emergency clinic in Beira on Wednesday. The child had suffered
acute diarrhea, which can be a symptom of cholera.
[to top of second column] |
In nearby Malawi, which was badly hit by flooding and heavy rains in
the leadup to Cyclone Idai, the government said arable and livestock
farming had been badly affected and that irrigation infrastructure
had been damaged.
Agriculture ministry spokesman Hamilton Chimala said around 420,000
metric tonnes of maize had been lost, representing roughly 12
percent of the country's forecast output of 3.3 million metric
tonnes in the 2018/19 farming season.
Impoverished Malawi is regularly hit by food shortages, so the
damage to the country's staple grain is a cause for concern.
Zimbabwe's Local Government Minister July Moyo said on Wednesday the
government would spend another $18 million to deal with the
aftermath of the cyclone.
As of Wednesday, 713 people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi had
died in the tropical storm and in the heavy rains before it hit.
(Reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer in Beira, Frank Phiri in Blantyre,
MacDonald Dzirutwe in Harare and Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay in Geneva;
Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Gareth Jones)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
