HEALTH Minister Sylvia Masebo has disclosed that children and men are the highest number of patients that are currently admitted at the Heroes National Cholera center with one being amongst the 23 that died yesterday.
According to yesterday’s statistics, 23 people died of Cholera countrywide, among these, 13 were community deaths, while 10 were deaths recorded from the Cholera center facility.
Among these, 22 were adults while one was a child.
Masebo further disclosed that as of yesterday, a total number of 446 new cases countywide compared to 457 cases on Thursday and 529 cases on Wednesday as on Tuesday, 736 cases were recorded.
“We remain hopeful although that this downward trend is the beginning of the end of this outbreak. The new cases however in the past 24 hours are distributed as follows, from the 446, 408 is in Lusaka Province, 19 is in Central province, 4 in Eastern province, 10 in southern province, and 4 on the Copperbelt province and also 4 in Northern province,” Masebo said.
Further, the minister noted that the number of patients currently in admission countrywide was 826 with 550 discharges in the last 24 hours.
This brings the cumulative number of recorded cases to 8, 276 since the outbreak four months ago and a cumulative 7,119 patients have been discharged.
And at Heroes Stadium Cholera Treatment Centre, the Minister noted that as at 06:00 hours yesterday, a total number of 543 patients were admitted.
“236 were males, 163 were females and 267 were children, showing that Children and males are the most affected,” Masebo disclosed.
She attributed the high number of children in admission to their vulnerability as they are unable to care for themselves as an adult can.
She noted that most of the children in admission are those whose mothers have careers or running businesses and are rarely home, stating that the hygiene levels of the children is lowered as they lack a mother to watch and care for them.
But to reduce the number of cases and community deaths, Masebo said that the ministry has invested in strengthening it’s Oral Rehydration Centers in communities while working on improving community case handling to help curb community mortalities.
“We are greatful as a nation to all the health workers who are working tirelessly to the Cholera outbreak. We are calling on members of the public to take personal hygiene seriously. To boil or chlorinate their drinking water, cook their food properly, and to save buying street food. We are also encouraging business owners and members of the community to keep their surroundings clean as the government is supporting this exercise by distribution of liquid Chlorine in targeted areas,” Masebo said.
By Buumba Mwitumwa
Kalemba January 13, 2023
