COMMUNITIES EXPERIENCES

Mercy Lungu stands at his maize field in chongwe Zambia, and watches his crop dry out in front of his eyes.

 

“I invested all my money into this two-hectare maize crop, and as you can see there is nothing that will come from here,” she said. LUNGU is not sure what she will do to feed his family of 10 and support his children’s education. “With this crop failure, I am really in trouble.”

 

In communities nearby such as kanyama, chawama, Matro and Misis compound, people have also been coping with cholera. There have been 188,000 cholera cases in six southern African countries in the last year, resulting in 3,400 deaths, according to the U.N. Twenty-one thousands of these cases were in Zambia, which saw a severe upsurge in cholera in late 2023 that led to more than 700 deaths. Schools from primary to university level were delayed opening, affecting 4.3 million students.

 

The combination of drought and cholera is a potentially deadly mix. “The scarcity of water sources in the drought-affected area are compelling people to turn to unsafe alternatives like shallow wells, heightening the risks of water-borne disease like cholera,” MoH Staff in Zambia.

 

Stomach ailments afflicting people already struggling to find enough food limits their ability to absorb nutrients, driving malnutrition. The risk of disease also increases when water shortages can cause poor hygiene practices. When people reduce handwashing, the risk of cholera increases.

 

Cholera threat in communities

In the community of Chilanga, 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Lusaka, Grace Mumba worked as a volunteer health during cholera at heroes Stadium in Lusaka. As one of the 50 volunteers trained by Ministry of health, Mumba helped people who became sick with cholera she made sure that they got oral rehydration therapy, no matter what time of the day or night, and refers patients to the hospital.

 

She also encourages people to practice good hygiene. “People just come from the toilet, and they don't wash their hands,” she said, adding that handwashing is particularly important before meals or handling food. “We need to tell them the method of washing their hands, and that they need to use soap.”

 

Mumba said that Chilanga suffers from poor solid waste management. “Water comes from the rubbish dumping sites and goes straight into the boreholes [wells]; that is the same water people use. That is why you find that cholera is everywhere here in Chilanga.”

 

Drought emergency

Following the cholera outbreak in 2023 and early 2024, Zambia endured a five-week period of little to no rain. The Zambian government declared a national disaster and emergency in the end of February. The drought has hit 84 of the country’s 116 districts, affecting more than a million farming households.

 

Since the outbreak began in 2023, many stakeholders and government Ministries have provided more than 1.5 million people in four southern African countries with hygiene kits and access to clean water, including by drilling and rehabilitating borehole wells, and installing solar-powered water systems in public health facilities and markets.

 

“Urgent support in the form of food and clean water is what people need the most now,” says KZF Director Ezra Banda. “Many have no food left because they did not harvest enough last year, and the El Nino-induced weather phenomenon has killed the slightest hope they had to feed themselves.”

 

Oxfam and partners in Zambia are doing further assessments to inform our humanitarian response. We intend to raise $6.5 million to provide 600,000 people with cash and clean water, help with growing winter crops, and improve local sanitation and hygiene services to prevent cholera.