Come out clear on Cholera

We are disheartened to learn that the number of people affected by Cholera keeps rising and currently stands at 289.

What is more alarming is the fact that 206 of these cases have been registered in Karonga District alone.

Cholera is a deadly disease and, if not treated on time, one can kick the bucket within a matter of hours.

The piecemeal delivery of information by the Ministry of Health regarding the outbreak has, however, led us to believe that there could be more cholera victims out there who might have not yet been accounted for, considering that the disease usually thrives during the rainy season.

Has the ministry deployed teams even in the remotest parts of the country to assess the situation before coming up with the figure of 289? This is because we are mindful of the fact that there usually are pockets of people that do not rush to hospital for medical help and these are the ones that might aggravate the problem.

People should also strictly adhere to hygiene practices if the outbreak is to be contained.

In years past, the ministry was better organised at combating the disease as officers took a proactive approach by setting up a taskforce well in advance, which saw the country not recording a single cholera case for a while.

That appears to be no longer the case as we keep observing officials frantically running around, trying to contain the damage that could be done as a result of the outbreak.

Let the ministry give us a realistic picture of the situation on the ground and, most importantly, the number of people that have succumbed to the disease. We cannot be peddling the same figure of four deaths when the number of patients keeps rising. This somehow gives us the impression that somebody is being economic with the truth by selectively managing the information shared with the public.

For once, can the government, through the Ministry of Health, put its foot right? Nobody should play around with issues to do with people’s health. Let officers in the field directly give people statistics and then we draw the conclusions on our own.