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TYPHOID: Food-vending especially in undesignated areas is a serious health issue, never to be taken lightly
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Time and again I read your twitters most of which I like, their inspiring quotes. However I wish to differ with your twitter regarding the banning of food-vending, this ban is long overdue. Food-vending is the most dangerous health risk we cannot afford as an emerging nation. We do have economic hardships in the country, serious ones as you highlight them eloquently. When the Minister of Health goes on to banning the food-vending most of the time those directives do not come from him but from the WHO in Geneva, who are well versed with economic and social aspects of each and every country member states of the UN. Believe me that decision was not taken lightly at all. I do not support a government of Zanu PF but am looking at the health aspects of food-vending in developing countries. Lets put people first before politics.
Food-vending especially in undesignated areas is a serious health issue, never to be taken lightly. Typhoid is a water-bone salmonella typhimurin bacteria induced disease yes, the piling up of domestic waste in towns and cities is also another time-bomb: a fertile ground for typhoid outbreak, I agree with your argument fully. Linda you need to look at the health issues regarding food-vending closely I wonder if at all you ever buy that food from food-vendors. I am sure the Minister Dr. Parerinyatwa does not buy the food sold from undesignated places of our towns of Zimbabwe. If he does not so the other people too! The government has the responsibility to fight typhoid now that is here to stay; it will not go easily as the fundamental causes of typhoid cannot be addressed overnight.
Presently it is raining heavily in all corners of our country; we thank God for the good rains. But you will know that we do not have enough toilets for people to use be it in urban or in rural dwellings people still use bush toilets. Officially 50% of the population in Zimbabwe use bush toilets: squatting. The rains do wash all the human droppings to unprotected wells and rivers infesting these waters with salmonella typhimurin bacteria. We have serious shortages of water in most cities of our country especially Bulawayo and Harare. People are left with no alternative but use that very water from unprotected wells. That is a very dangerous phenomenon indeed.
Please look around and see if you can see a toilet and running water at food-vending points! So when the vendors go to toilets; bush toilets where do they wash their hands? Again most of the foods are displayed on the ground, some of them not covered and the whole dust settles on food that will be consumed by the public. Hell no, banning is long overdue! Vending YES it’s accepted to alleviate poverty in our homes but not food-vending. Even when we have regime change we shall still advocate the banning of food-vending for health reasons. There shall never be any undesignated food-vending in Zimbabwe for health reasons. We are in the second millennium and in 2017 our lives must transform for the better, we need to uplift the lives of our people; we cannot be a laughing stock for so long. To be a food retailer or a kiosk, owner or anything to do with servicing food to the public, you need a health inspection check, the person and the vicinity you will undertake your business. Some basic health thresholds must be met and some of them are a TOILET AND RUNNING WATER. Typhoid is a disease that can be eradicated if there were good intentions on the part of the Zanu PF government. Typhoid is a disease that easily spreads inside the food-chain; water and food as the medium.
As a nation we still need to learn and appreciate the culture of washing our hands all the time. A close look at the back streets and alleys in our towns, they are smelly of urine and human droppings, so when they finish the “NUMBER TWO” where did they wash their hands? Immediately then after the going to the open toilet, they will serve food to a customer with those unwashed hands! Faecal oral transmission route! in Latin language: faecal oral!
These are strong questions that can evoke emotions but are pertinent for the sake of the nation. Typhoid is a national security risk just like cholera. We need to put the health of people as a nation first before politics Linda.
These cattle that stray across the country’s main roads, they do use those very rivers and wells as their source of water that will have collected so much human droppings, some of our waste water treatment plants have burst, all the contents find their way into rivers and wells that will be used by residents both from cities and towns and livestock. Such domestic animals do suffer from measles and they collapse and die. When cattle die in rural areas, it is not cremated but it is made use of: it is wholly consumed. Nothing is thrown away in our societies. Do you know how many diseases humans collect through such food chains?
It is a good thing that you touched this most important subject at all. We do have serious water and sanitation issues in the country as a whole. As long as we drink dirty untreated water, no improvement in water and sanitation, we are heading for a rude health awakening!
Source – Nomazulu Thata