City cholera outbreak is like an act of war
To prevent an outbreak of cholera, drinking water should not mix with human waste. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- A cholera outbreak is a sign that a city’s waste disposal systems are not up to scratch, and at some point, human waste was mixing with water and food in the city.
- We have come to be so used to expect failure and bungling by our State officers that the few that just get their regular jobs done are recognised as heroes to be emulated.
This past week, the Nairobi County Government announced that the city was experiencing a cholera outbreak.
Numerous cases were reported across many hospitals in the city, but the City’s Health Chief Officer was keen to downplay the impact of the epidemic.
He indicated that the cases “are isolated”, as though that was a marker of good prognosis in cholera outbreaks.
Happily, he indicated, no fatalities were reported, and the vast majority of those admitted for treatment were discharged in good condition.
Cholera is a curious illness. A cholera outbreak is a sign that a city’s waste disposal systems are not up to scratch, and at some point, human waste was mixing with water and food in the city.
FAILED SYSTEM
A cholera outbreak says that the public health system that is meant to assure the public of their safety as they go about their day to day business is broken.
A cholera outbreak is an indication that water treatment systems are either non-existent or broke down a long time ago, putting millions of lives at risk.
In public health, a cholera epidemic says much more about the organisation and effectiveness of a health system than any sophisticated monitoring and evaluation assessment could uncover.
A cholera outbreak is not a sudden thing that happens accidentally. More than one outbreak, as is becoming the norm in Nairobi and other counties in this country, is a phenomenon that is symptomatic of a failed health administration.
In places where people actually care about human lives, such an outbreak can lead to recriminations against whoever is in charge of health and sanitation.
ACCOUNTABILITY
In a modern open and democratic society, such as we aspire to become, citizens would not countenance any excuses for repeated epidemics of a disease that can only be transmitted through the mixture of human waste and drinking water.
Government officials would be busy trying to determine where the responsibility lies so that whoever allowed people to eat or drink stuff that fits better in sewerage treatment plants would fall on his sword without needing any further prompting.
That life in the city has continued without interruption is an indictment of our system of governance.
The fact that very few people are asking the hard questions suggests that we have become so used to mediocrity that another report of preventable disease does not cause so much as a ripple in a pool.
EXPECTATIONS
We have become so inured to human suffering and death that we are able to listen without emotion to news that dozens of Kenyan lives were put at risk by the failure of responsible authorities to keep drinking water clean.
Indeed, we have come to be so used to expect failure and bungling by our State officers that the few that just get their regular jobs done are recognised as heroes to be emulated.
Our standards are so low that we even mix these ‘heroes’ - ordinary men and women just doing their jobs - with such maladroit and wilfully pernicious ogres as mass murderers, thieves, and conmen.
We seem to have given up on good, healthy lives, and are now just content to get by.
A cholera epidemic in a democratic middle-income state must be treated as an act of war against the citizens.
Only then might our health authorities get serious about protecting the public from basic health risks.
Dr Lukoye Atwoli is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Dean, Moi University School of Medicine; [email protected]
