(TALKZIMBABWE) Our unknown 3,092 cholera deaths

Our unknown 3,092 cholera deaths
Julia Guercia – Opinion
Sat, 20 Dec 2008 14:15:00 +0000

DISCLAIMER: This article was originally written in Portuguese. We had to seek translation services for it. Any misrepresentation of facts was not deliberate.

DEAR EDITOR – The World Health Organisation has called for a doubling of efforts to combat the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe. We are all concerned about the deaths of Zimbabweans from the cholera outbreak in that country, especially because cholera is a simple disease to treat and in this day and age, people should not really be dying of this disease.

My own country, Angola has been battling with the epidemic for almost a decade now. We have not had the same exposure and hence our efforts have been kept under wraps from the international community.

As you all know Angola is a country with substantial deposits of oil and many Western countries invest in the country and quietly remit the wealth to their own countries, so Angola has been spared the media onslaught that Zimbabwe has had. This onslaught, in one hand, has been helpful for concerned donors and humanitarian agencies to come to Zimbabwe. On the other, it has been used for propaganda purposes.

Unfortunately, our people die today and the world is spared that news. I have been working with French and Portuguese small agencies to ensure the survival of my people – day in and day out. We have appealed to all the rich oil companies to help eradicate this disease but that has never happened.

Let me give you the shocking statistics, Mr. Editor.

In 1987, Angola had over 16,000 reported cases of cholera and 1,510 deaths from the disease. In 1988 alone, a year later there were 15,100 cases. Between 1997 and 2005 no one reported cholera in the country. It was kept under wraps.

Between February 2006 and May 2007, there were 82,204 reported cases of the epidemic with 3,092 cholera related deaths. The outbreak reached 16 out of 18 provinces. This year alone, the cases are already in the thousands although the official statistics are not yet out

I do not mean to diminish the extent of the crisis in Zimbabwe, but would like to highlight that my country has been left off the international radar. Angola has huge resources, is a rich country with a lot of oil revenues that could be used for the betterment of the lives of our people.

Please allow the world to see this reality that is unfolding out our countries and the politicization of the plight of people. If all the rich companies that invest in Africa were concerned about public health all of these crises that we experience today would have been a thing of the past. There should be corporate social responsibility by all these big oil and mineral companies that make huge profits, but fail to look after the populations of the countries they make the money from.

BP or British Petroleum made profits of US$17.29 billion in 2007 yet today we still have to fight hard to get NGOs and humanitarian agencies to support our efforts.
This is the story of our African continent and the plunder of its riches today.

Julia Guercia – Opinion
Portugal