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- A Stuijt
- Retired South African medical journalist, ex-Sunday Times of Johannesburg.
ANC-leaders attacked over Limpopo cholera epidemic
21:51 | 
Posted by
A Stuijt |
ANC-mayor ‘s car stoned at cholera victims’funeral, councillor’s house torched
In Pietersburg/Polokwane on January 22, an ANC-municipal councillor's house was torched. It's believed this is a 'cholera-related protest against the leadership' -- with the tenth official cholera death (unofficially, it’s 25) recorded in Limpopo province in South Africa since November last year.
Police superintendent Mohale Ramatseba said the unnamed councillor's house in the Greater Tubatse Municipality – which supplies water-reticulation services to the entire region - was burnt down on Monday.
Monday's incident followed another attack on another ANC-leader, local mayor Ralepane Mamekoa on Saturday, while he tried to attend a mass-funeral for fifteen cholera victims which the authorities insist didn’t die of cholera. His car was hit with countless stones and all the car windows broken.
Community spokesman Fanny Matsunyane confirmed that the attack on the mayor was due to the fact that people blamed his poor water-reticulation service for the cholera epidemic. Matsunyane claims that the municipality ‘s clean water tanks, provided to stop people from drinking from the river, quickly run dry. "And the community is worried that people who are admitted for cholera are dying and that the municipality is not communicating their plans to assist in stopping this," he said. The municipality provides tanks with clean water to stop people from going to streams, and he fears more deaths: noting that every time the clean-water supply has been depleted, people go back to using the cholera-infested river water.
1980/1 CHOLERA OUTBREAKS IN KZN AND BOPHUTHATSWANA
NEWSCLIPPING, RAND DAILY MAIL - This is an experience I have personally also observed during the 1980/1 cholera epidemics I reported on for the Rand Daily Mail newspaper. Two cholera outbreaks occurred simultaneously in Northern KwaZuluNatal and in the then-homeland of Bophuthatswana near Pretoria. See the report from the Rand Daily Mail published at the time, reporting that the SA Army ‘s quick action had saved many thousands of lives. Both regions were sealed off by the SA Army medical service and a large number of rehydration tent sites set up at Catholic mission station hospitals and government clinics to control the outbreaks. It was found that both rivers feeding into these regions were infected with cholera. Hundreds of water-tankers from the military were sent out, driven by young soldiers who were taking clean water around to all these communities. They were invariably greeted with ululuing and great cheer, and the free water-purification tablets and packets which were handed out during the military’s cholera-prevention meetings were all snapped up by the thousands. As soon as the water-tanks emptied out and fresh supplies didn’t arrive in time, however, back they all went, into the river, swimming in it, drinking from it, and defacating in it. Teams of soldiers were constantly searching the river banks, trying to keep the kids from swimming in the rivers. And the water-purification packets we noticed were sold as ‘cholera-medicine’ at roadside stands and local spaza shops. Combating cholera in South Africa is a major undertaking – and the Limpopo provincial health department is barely coping. Without the help of the International Red Cross, which has also set up several clean water-reticulation sites, the epidemic could be a lot, lot worse… The pictures were taken by my late husband, press photographer Pierre Oosthuysen.
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This week the local municipality, which manages water supply to the entire Tubatse region, said that they had budgeted R18m (about $1million) to combat the epidemic. This money has to come from their very small taxpayer-base. The central government still has not sent any cash to help them out with their extra expenses. Spokesman Sizwe Yende also said they didn't know that the clean-water tanks' supplies were depleted so quickly -- promising that they 'would investigate and supply more water wherever there was a need'. http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2457295,00.html
Labels:
Cholera epidemics 2008 and 2009
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