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Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Harare City Council has declared its preparedness to deal with any cholera outbreak in the city saying it has a surveillance team monitoring all suburbs while water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and health teams were activated and on high alert.

This comes after cases of cholera were reported in Mt Darwin last week.

In an interview, Town Clerk Eng Hosiah Chisango said Harare was on high alert as most people were always travelling to the city since it was the capital.

“We continue to hear some cholera cases being reported across the country in places such as Mt Darwin, Chipinge and other areas. We are aware that most of the traffic ends up in Harare as the capital. As a city, our WASH and health teams are always activated and on high alert so that we are able to respond to any cases,” he said.

“We have a team that we put up together for water sanitation and hygiene that always do surveillance and monitoring of all our suburbs visiting our clinics to see if there are any cases that are being reported there.”

He said the city was mobilising resources so that it can quickly attend to any cases that may be reported in Harare.

Eng Chisango said there were no new cholera cases in Harare but since it is happening in Zimbabwe the city remains on high alert.

“We also want to inform the residents of Harare that there is work we are doing with Higher Life and Liquid Telecom, who are assisting us in rehabilitating some of our sewers in the western suburbs mainly. There were 10 that we identified at the beginning of the cholera epidemic — Budiriro, Glen View, Kuwadzana, Dzivarasekwa and Glen Norah,” he said.

“Of those 10, nine are now complete. We are now completing work along Mutamba Street in Mufakose to make sure that we clean up waste water. We are negotiating with organisations that we are working with so that we can do 10 more sites. We provide materials and labour while they provide the plant.

Eng Chisango said in terms of waste management the city continues to collect garbage despite some fuel challenges adding that awareness programmes will continue so that people maintain high levels of hygiene.

A cholera outbreak in which hit Harare and other parts of the country in September claimed 49 lives and left thousands needing treatment.