By FRANCINA PHIRI, CHILA NAMAIKO and KASONDE KASONDE –

.ZEMA

THE Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) in collaboration with Lusaka City Council has temporarily suspended the recycling of waste materials at Chunga dumpsite in Lusaka as a way of halting the spread of cholera.
ZEMA corporate affairs manager Irene Chipili said the Agency had placed security forces around Chunga area to ensure that waste did not go back to the communities.
Ms Chipili said that the measure would also help regulate the increasing number of people who picked waste at the site.
And Health Minister Chitalu Chilufya has disclosed that 100 new cholera cases were yesterday recorded in Lusaka, bringing the accumulative numbers to about 2,600.
Dr Chilufya told journalists at State House yesterday that one person died within one hour of admission.
He said all cholera patients had been shifted to the Heroes Stadium, which was declared as a hospital and that the facility was conducive with patients receiving the best of healthcare.
Presidential spokesperson Amos Chanda clarified that there had never been a lock-down in Lusaka, but what was in place were preventive measures.
Meanwhile, the Government has received four million doses of cholera vaccine from Swaziland to be distributed to people living in high cholera risk areas.
Ministry of Health spokesperson Maxwell Bweupe said the country had received the first two of the three bunches, which was two million doses by two.
Dr Bweupe said the country had used the vaccine before when cholera broke out in Bauleni Township and it worked well in reducing the spread and the severe impact of the disease when one was infected.
“The people that are eligible to get the cholera vaccine are those in high-risk areas where there is the outbreak right now. Other population at risk can be considered, for example, health workers on the frontline and school children and other people deployed in affected areas,” Dr Bweupe said.
He said the vaccine was safe and offered about 60 to 90 per cent protection against contracting cholera and had minimal side effects such as tiredness, mild diarrhoea and nausea.
And the Civil Service Commission has called on civil servants across the country to protect themselves during the cholera epidemic and ensure that they carry out their mandate in a clean and conducive environment.
Civil Service Commission chairperson Dickson Chasaya said the commission was saddened by the strain the disease had put on the economy through the loss of human capital and resources.