Cholera: ‘Residents eating their own faeces’ in Zimbabwe

On a tour of the low-income suburb of Kuwadzana, 20 minutes west of the city centre, a delegation led by the Minister of Health Douglas Mombeshora found families were using free-flowing sewage to water their gardens.

“It really means people are eating their own faeces,” a member of the delegation said off the record.

Sewer reticulation infrastructure in Harare was installed in the 1950s for a small population of 84,000, now there are 1,578,000 people in the city. The system is now overwhelmed resulting in continuous pipe bursts.

“Some residents have taken the sewage as greywater. Whereas greywater can be safely used in the garden because it doesn’t carry faecal matter, sewage cannot,” said a doctor in the delegation.

“Cholera is mostly transmitted through the faecal-oral route. In handling and eating vegetables contaminated with sewage the bacterium infects people and spreads quickly,” he added. 

The government has drilled boreholes in most densely populated areas but the borehole water has been contaminated by the sewage. People also use pit latrines which have polluted the shallow wells from which residents fetch water.

“We have declared a state of emergence because of cholera,” Harare mayor Ian Makone said this week. “The cholera outbreak has been caused because we do not have adequate water supplies to the city. Many people have turned to boreholes and wells which are contaminated,” he added.

Minister Mombeshora said watering gardens with sewage must be banned. He is also mooting banning the sale of street food.

“But the solution will come down to a sound education for the residents and the provision of safe potable water,” said the doctor.

The country has since the current outbreak, recorded 7,000 cases and 142 deaths.