Home Health Health scare grips Kadoma residents

Health scare grips Kadoma residents

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By Lerato Ndlovu

Collapsing sanitation systems in the urban areas, has resulted in the resurge of typhoid in some areas around Zimbabwe. The disease which claimed lives of many in 2017 if it return will scare the masses for they are already fighting to curb another deadly pandemic COVID 19.

Kadoma residents have raised alarm after having contaminated water coming out of their water tapes on the few occasions that they have received water.

Sources who spoke to Bustop TV News said that the water is coming back as raw sewerage resulting in the residents seeking treatment for typhoid and other water borne disease.

“The water we are receiving here in Rimuka is coming straight from the sewer, you can even smell the water smelling human discharges (Faeces) when one opens the tap, for some of us we thought its just the smell but when we noticed we had been hit by typhoid that’s when we started alerting others in the community to boil the water first before uptake.

“Its hard coming home from work to a family struck by typhoid when you are coming from a place where you will be covering and protecting yourself saying you want to avoid COVID 19,” said a Kadoma resident only identified as Sheila.

The residents urged the council to act quickly in terms of pipe repairing and water purification so as to prevent another outbreak from happening in the town as the numbers of people saying they have had typhoid are slowly increasing.

Kadoma Progressive Residents Association (KAPRA) Acting Chairperson George Goliati said water in the town does not reach a lot of locations but the few that have access to it are prone to diseases considering the state of water infrastructure in the mining town.

“Kadoma has plenty of water in its water sources, but the biggest challenge is the piping systems. They are not adequate for the council to ensure that everyone has a portion of the water, the few that can access it are those near the water bodies, for the majority they survive on personal boreholes,” he said.

He went on to say that the pipes in the town for both the sewer and clean water are too rusty and its possible to have backflows of polluted water, at the same time sewer is constantly bursting.

“We once engaged the council and told them that the residents are ready for prepaid meters in order for them to have adequate revenue to repair the pipes since they claimed that maintenance is costly due to unpaid water dues by rate payers.

“Sewer is always bursting in the CBD and locations especially Rimuka and Ingezi and maintaining that is also expensive for the council and we are also not sure on how we can assist them on that since our plea hasn’t been responded too,” he said.

The disease is spread through contaminated food and water, it carries symptoms such as lasting high fevers, weakness, stomach pains, lethargy, diarrhea, abdominal pains, headaches and loss of appetite.

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