Zimbabwe: Threat of Waterborne Disease From Unsafe Water

Jennifer Madongonda, 43, shares a seven-roomed house with three other families in the low-income suburb of Budiriro, about 15km southwest of the capital of Zimbabwe, Harare.  Seven months ago the municipality cut off water supply because they couldn't pay the bill.

Water supplies to this suburb are very erratic.  People get running water at most four times a week for short periods of time. 

People used to rely on the boreholes that were set up in 2008 but most of them have broke down and no one has come to repair them.  Neighbors don't want to share water because they fear the huge bills also.

Budiriro was regarded as the epicenter of the cholera epidemic that began in August 2008 and lasted for a year.  The waterborne disease killed more than 4,000 people and infected nearly 100,000 others, and all water sources wre found to be contaminated.

Many neighborhoods dug shoallow wells aftyer the collapse of water and sanitation infrastructure in Zimbabwe's economic implosion, creating ideal conditions for the proliferation of cholera. 

To combat cholera, donor organizations, including the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), drilled scores of boreholes, but many have since fallen into disrepair and at night it is not uncommon to see long queues at the few remaining working boreholes as residents jostle to get water for the next day.

The people cook at all sorts of times - sometimes at midnight or early morning - when they mabnage to get water. They can hardly spare any water to wash clothes because they don't have containers big enough to store it.

There is a stream about 5km away from town that is used for laundry and bathing.  Many of the women complain of skin problems abd it is suspected that the water is poluted with sewage and dangerous chemicals dumped in the stream by factories.  It seems it will not be long before there is abother cholera outbreak.

UNICEF drilled the boreholes in response to the cholera outbreak of 2008 and handed them over to be maintained by Harare City (municipality).  UNICEF trained the staff in the operation and maintenance of these boreholels.  UNICEF has recently provided spares and tool kits for the boreholes to the municipality.

In 2010 UNICEF drilled 43 additional boreholes in Harare and is assisting in the rehabilitiation of the capital's main source of water.  But the municipality does not have enough money to buy spares.


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