Ebola: Harare is ready for disease

By Wendy Muperi

HARARE – Harare City Council (HCC) has declared that it is adequately equipped to deal with any Ebola outbreak.

Prosper Chonzi, the Health Services director, said the city’s personnel was among hundreds of health professionals in the public service who had received training on how to manage the disease.

“Our 16 doctors and 200 nurses and the army have been trained,” Chonzi said yesterday during a tour of Wilkins Hospital, the country’s biggest Ebola isolation centre. “Tomorrow, we are training the police. We already have six teams on stand-by who will be working four-hour shifts.

“The drugs and protective equipment are there and we can beef-up our personnel with the army, air force, prisons and police in case we get overwhelmed.”

Zimbabwe is still Ebola free.

“For us in the southern region, if you have not travelled to those parts where it is, chances of contracting the disease are next to zero because we do not have the birds which carry the virus,” said the city health director.

Chonzi said HCC had already partnered two funeral parlours and burial ground had already been reserved at Granville Cemetery in case the disease gets here.

“Once an Ebola patient dies, the body becomes even more infectious so we will have to take over the disposal of the bodies including the clothes of the deceased,” he said. “The parlours will help us but, for now, they remain confidential.” Daily News