The Sunday Mail
Leonard Ncube in Victoria Falls
SOME health scientists are concerned about poor water and sanitation facilities in the country which they said is a key driver of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), mostly bilharzia and intestinal worms.
The Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa (TIBA) initiative, comprising health researchers and scientists from local and international academic and research institutions, met in Victoria Falls recently where they signed the Kigali Declaration to end NTDs.
There are about 20 NTDs in Africa affecting 1,7 billion people in the world.
Over 100 million people in Africa are affected by bilharzia, with over 50 million of them children below five.
Bilharzia, also known as Schistosoma and intestinal worms are the most common in Zimbabwe.
Driven by poor water and sanitation facilities.
The Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) 2022 Rural Livelihoods Assessment revealed that 78 percent of rural households have access to improved water sources while about 66 percent had access to improved sanitation, and 27 percent practicing open defecation.
Matabeleland North has the highest, 50 percent proportion of households practising open defecation followed by Mashonaland West with 34 percent.
Government has however set targets to expand access to improved sanitation facilities from 70 percent to 77 percent in both urban and rural areas, with particular attention to reducing open defecation in rural areas as part of key deliverables in the National Development Strategy (NDS1).
TIBA deputy director, Professor Francisca Mutapi, a Zimbabwean researcher at Edinburgh University said the two are diseases of poverty and related to poor water and sanitation.
“In Zimbabwe our focus has been mostly on bilharzia and soil transmitted worms. In order for us to stop these diseases we have to stop transmission and infection which means we need toilets and access to safe water to prevent people from practicing open defecation and using unsafe sources like rivers and well where eggs passed out through urine or stool of infected people is washed down to,” said Prof Mutapi.
She said while the country has been running a national control programme for the worms and bilharzia since 2012, treating about 5 million children every year, not everybody is reached by the programme as under five year olds are not treated.
Prof Mutapi however said control programmes had paid dividends after prevalence among primary school children dropped from about 30 percent in 2012 to 2 percent.
“These are free treatments provided by Government with funding from partners such as End Fund and Higherlife. When we started the control programmes we had about 30 percent of primary school children affected in the country, and over five years of treatment, our national prevalence went down to about 2 percent but we have pockets that have over 50 percent around the country,” she said.
Executive director of Uniting to Combat NTDs, Mrs Thoko Elphick-Pooley implored Government to prioritise NTDs as medicines are provided for free by partners.
She said Government can show commitment by declaring a national day of deworming in the country.
“Providing clean water and sanitation can go a long way in dealing with these NTDs. We don’t want intestinal worms to become an added barrier because when a child is infected, the nutrition they are receiving derives little benefit and their education is affected.
“We are appealing to Government to make this a priority and make sure there is a national deworming programme by setting up a national deworming day like we did with HIV and Aids,” said Mrs Thoko Elphick-Pooley.
She said bilharzia has serious health complications for women.
Rural women and children women are mostly at risk as they get into contact with dirty water while fetching water of doing chores in rivers.
“The impact on women can be so devastating throughout course of life. They get misdiagnosed mostly with sexually transmitted infections, have problems with reproductive health, infertility and other cancers.
“If the country becomes aware of the burden of these diseases, work with partners, prioritise them it can achieve massive success,” she said.
University of Zimbabwe Professor Takafira Mduluza said mass treatment of these NTDs should be extended to children below five years and medicines for their age developed.
Currently the control programmes targets school going children.
“These diseases are neglected because most of them are WASH related. When WASH facilities are poor people go to the river and get infected by drinking unsafe water. So government must put in enough resources for clean water,” he said.
Nine countries Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe, represented by research institutes, universities and health scientists make up TIBA in partnership with the University of Edinburgh.
