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Paidamoyo Chipunza Senior Health Reporter—

TYPHOID cases are falling in Harare although more needs to be done to address the sanitation situation in the city and surrounding areas, Health and Child Care Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa has said.

In an interview after a typhoid taskforce meeting in Harare yesterday, Minister Parirenyatwa, who chairs the committee, said Harare City Council had reported a drop in hospital admissions from about 20 to 11.

He said the number of both confirmed and suspected cases was also going down.

The cumulative figure of confirmed cases now stands at 23 and 138 suspected cases.

“We are confident that we are on course in containing the outbreak as we begin to see a decline in numbers of both suspected and confirmed cases,” he said.

He said no new cases had been reported in the past week.

Health teams were already in the field educating communities on sanitation and hygiene.

Dr Parirenyatwa said poor sanitation remains an issue with the potential to derail all current efforts.

He said reports coming from health officials in Harare, Ruwa, Epworth, Norton and Chitungwiza showed that local authorities were relegating their obligation to provide adequate sanitary facilities for residents.

He said some of the affected areas were new settlements with poor road networks and sanitary facilities where diseases breed and spread to other parts of the country.

“We still have challenges of poor drainage systems, sewer blockages, no refuse collection in some settlements and these are possible causes of water borne diseases.

“If these are not addressed as a matter of urgency, we can never safely say we have contained typhoid,” said Dr Parirenyatwa.

Dr Parirenyatwa said the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing reported that it was working on unblocking all drains, attending to sewer blockages and collecting refuse using tractors to curb further spread of typhoid and other water-borne diseases.

“As the Health Ministry, we remain on high alert to respond to any suspected case and continue putting pressure on our counterpart ministry to also deliver on their mandate of providing safe water and sanitary facilities to its citizens,” said Dr Parireyatwa.

Efforts to get comment from both Local Government Minister Saviour Kasukuwere and his Permanent Secretary Engineer George Mlilo were fruitless as their mobile phones went unanswered.

The latest typhoid outbreak was reported during the festive season in Mbare, where a 13-year-old girl succumbed to the disease.

Suspected cases were also reported in Glen View and Budiriro.