జర్నల్ ఆఫ్ కోస్టల్ జోన్ మేనేజ్‌మెంట్

నైరూప్య

Alleviate 5000 People from Infectious Diseases in 4 Compounds within Lusaka Zambia

Langizya Masengu Shimba

Alleviate 5000 people from infectious diseases in 4 compounds within Lusaka, Zambia: Lusaka the capital city of Zambia has about 43 unplanned settlements which host 70% of the city population. Most of these settlements have experienced untold forms of suffering due to regular occurrences of infectious diseases such as cholera nearly every rainy season. The infectious diseases are attributed to the poor hygiene and lack of safe clean water. Once rainfall received exceeds 800mm in a season, (Nchito 2007), such unplanned settlements experience the outbreak of infectious diseases immediately. Some of the unplanned settlements identified out of the 43 unplanned settlements are Matero, Kuku, Misisi and kalikiliki. These out breaks date as far back as 2000 and the most dangerous being the period of (2017 – 2018) rainy season, which is reported to have killed a total of 865 people out of which 212 were under five and 656 were over five ( MOH 2018). The total cases of Cholera recorded in the report were 35, 580; out of which 11, 612 were fewere than 5 and 23, 942 were over 5. The challenge in these unplanned settlements is those three – quarters (3/4) of the people here, still depend on water from shallow wells and use pit – latrines which are less than 3 meters apart. This results in ground water mixing with fical matter and there by resulting in infectious diseases which kill 54.7% of children. The focus of this project therefore, is to train approximately 5000 people in segments in environmental health issues such as sanitation and hygiene, construct low cost manual boreholes for 5000 beneficiaries in Lusaka`s Matero, Kuku, Misisi and Kalikiliki compounds. The project will then formulate borehole maintenance committees which it shall work closely with, hire local artisans and necessary manpower needed for the construction purposes. These works will ensure supply of clean and safe water and acceptable hygienic pit latrines, derived from the training in environmental health issues. Zero waste organization wants to end the out breaks of infectious diseases like cholera and typhoid in Zambia by 2026.