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Article added on 11 December 2008
ZANE Cholera Update
By ZANE staff writers:
The UN in Zimbabwe are predicting somewhere in the region of 60,000 cholera cases in the coming weeks, with a death toll of around 2,700.
Many hospitals and clinics have closed. Many people are already ravaged by HIV, AIDS and extreme hunger. Large numbers of the population are only eating a couple of times a week. When cholera hits people in these conditions it hits hard and with deadly effect.
On December 8th 2008 a ZANE doctor wrote:
"I am physically and emotionally exhausted at this time. I have never had to work in the conditions that I am seeing in the health sector of this country.
The deaths not only from cholera, which should never have been allowed to reach the proportions that it has (2756 cases and 134 deaths at the hospital where I have been assisting, which is not figures for the total epidemic by any means). The deaths are simply because no government hospital is working, (I lost a 16 month old baby yesterday from pneumonia, because I could not find anywhere to admit her, and a man with malaria due to the same reason. Both are easily treatable conditions)."
ZANE is committed to providing treatment and education programmes to combat cholera, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. In addition, ZANE runs community development projects in and around Harare and Bulawayo to enable people to live and work in a self-sufficient way and to provide a model for sustainable living in the future.
ZANE also works with pensioners who are in care homes throughout Zimbabwe. Their pensions destroyed by hyper-infation, they have nothing left and depend on ZANE for their survival.
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