By REBECCA MUSHOTA –
THE Lusaka Province medical office has urged Lusaka residents to heed seriously to messages of cholera prevention to curb new cases.
Meanwhile, the Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company (LWSC) has suspended the sale of water at its communal taps in Kanyama, John Laing and Chibolya townships in Lusaka to allow more people in the affected areas to have free access to safe drinking water as a way of preventing the further spread of cholera.
Lusaka Province medical officer Kennedy Malama was speaking yesterday when he featured on the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) television programme, National Watch.
He said the disease was initially reported in Kanyama before it spread to John Laing, Kabanana and, most recently, to Chawama.
“We are sensitising the public on the ways to prevent cholera, but the question is, what are the people doing with those messages? They need to put them into practice,” Dr Malama said.

. MWANSA

Lusaka Town Clerk Alex Mwansa said the Lusaka City Council was aware of the role street vending played in spreading cholera and were being engaged on safer methods of trade.
Mr Mwansa said there were a number of programmes that the council had in place to move vendors to better trading places, adding that the local authority would not engage in running battles with the vendors, but use civil ways of moving them.
Meanwhile, the LWSC has suspended the sale of water at its communal taps in Kanyama, John Laing and Chibolya, to control the spread of cholera.
The company’s public relations officer Nshamba Muzungu said in a statement that this would  allow more people in the affected locations gain access to safe and clean drinking water.
The company has also appealed to the residents of Lusaka to desist from using water from shallow wells and other unsafe sources.
Mr Muzungu said LWSC was undertaking door-to-door sanitation awareness campaigns in Kanyama to promote hygiene and hand washing.
In addition, the utility company has also increased the chlorine dosage for the water that is supplied by water trusts in peri-urban areas and would soon be distributing chlorine to households in peri-urban areas.
The company was expecting to receive about 5,000 boxes of chlorine from the United Nations Child Emergency Fund to distribute to all the peri-urban areas regardless of whether there had been reported outbreaks or not.
“Residents of Lusaka are advised to ensure that they access clean and safe drinking water supplied by the company in order to avoid drinking contaminated water and getting infected with waterborne diseases such as cholera,” Mr Muzungu said.