14 DAY TRIAL // United Nations agencies announced on Friday that the recent Zimbabwean cholera outbreak was just "the tip of the iceberg," in what concerns the state of health that most of this nation's inhabitants had. Decades of poor country management have brought the health system on the verge of collapse, so the fact that cholera killed some 400 people and infected over 9,400 over the past few weeks, should come as a surprise to no one, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said.
The main reason why the outbreak is so powerful is the fact that there are only very few places in the entire country where people can get medical attention, and all these clinics are severely understaffed. The qualification of already-existing personnel is also a topic for discussion, as most of them have only basic medical training. The numbers of Western world volunteers is completely insufficient to cover the need of some 14 million inhabitants.
Because of the extreme poverty in this country, most people don't even have access to latrines, for the simple reason that they don't exist, a situation that can also be encountered in India. Volunteers from several international organizations have been working on building latrines and distributing medical supplies for years, but they make little difference for the whole population.
A UNICEF report stated that "Without international support, the lives of children in Zimbabwe will remain in grave danger," referring to the fact that kids are most vulnerable in such situations, especially without access to fresh and clean water. The UN-backed organization also said that the sewage system of the country needed thorough fixing, as did the water pipes.
Neighboring countries are doing everything in their power to assist, but resources in the area can only be spread so thin, and, without international back-up, the outbreak can easily turn into a pandemic that would sweep the entire region.