Desperate measures being taken by residents of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, to cushion the effects of acute water shortages are aggravating the health problems of its 1.5 million residents. Stringent water rationing has been introduced in a bid to make the contents of fast dwindling dams last until the onset of the expected rains in November, but the municipal council acknowledges that the poor inflows of water into the southern city's reservoirs has led to an increase in waterborne diseases.
Poverty and health
Parched city braces for disease outbreak
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), 19 September 2007
Poverty, mental health and municipal services in South Africa
Swartz L, Breen A, Fisher A, Joska J, Corrigall J, Plaatjies L and McDonald DA: Municipal Services Project, Occasional Paper 12
There have been dramatic changes to municipal services such as water and electricity since the end of apartheid in South Africa, with considerable research having gone into the impacts of commercialisation and cost recovery on low-income households. The research has revealed complex and often negative relationships between the marketisation of services and access and affordability for the poor. It has also been shown to have direct and very negative public health implications, most acutely in low-income township and rural areas.Less obvious, and much less researched, have been the impacts of changes in service delivery on the mental health of low-income residents and household members. What, then, might be the links between poverty, mental health and the shift towards market-oriented reforms in basic services? This paper explores the relationship in the South African context with a detailed, ethnographic case study of ten low-income families in Cape Town coping with a serious mental disorder (schizophrenia).
The impact of maternal health on poverty
Falkingham J: ID21 Research Highlight, 2 August 2007
The links between poverty and poor maternal health are well established. Poorer countries experience the highest rates of maternal mortality, whilst maternal death and life-threatening and debilitating illness are higher amongst women from poorer households. However, there is now growing evidence that poor maternal health can also exacerbate poverty.
The Problem of Handwashing and Paying for Water in South Africa
Haffajee F, Chopra M, Sanders D: Municipal Services Project, Occasional Paper 13
Water-related diseases are widely recognised as a major threat to public health, especially in the developing world. An estimated 19% of all infectious diseases are related to water, sanitation and hygiene risk factors. In South Africa the provision of basic infrastructure such as water and sanitation has been an important part of the social contract between the government and its constituencies. In 2001 the government became a partner in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for All (WASH) campaign, which was designed to attract resources to address the situation of millions of people without access to adequate water supply and sanitation. In Johannesburg, a privately managed parastatal was contracted to deliver water and associated services in the city. As part of their water service delivery and improvement of services, the company opted to deliver services using prepaid water meters and yard taps. But do households respond differently to hygiene and handwashing interventions such as WASH depending on which water and payment systems they have? This paper explores that question.
$363 million Poverty Reduction Grant signed to improve healthcare systems, water resources, and private sector investment
Millenium Challenge Corporation, 23 July 2007
The five-year Millennium Challenge Compact with Lesotho aims to increase water supplies for industrial and domestic use, to mitigate the devastating affects of poor maternal health, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other diseases, and to remove barriers to foreign and local private sector investment. By 2013, the Compact will benefit the majority of the population of 1.8 million due to its broad geographic scope and focus on sectors that impact most Basotho such as health and the provision of potable water.
Board of Directors for MCC approves Poverty Reduction Grants for Lesotho and Mozambique
Millenium Challenge Corporation, 27 June 2007
The five-year $362.6 million grant to Lesotho seeks to increase water supplies for industrial and domestic use, to mitigate the devastating affects of poor maternal health, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other diseases by substantially strengthening the country’s health care infrastructure and human resources for health capacity, and to remove barriers to foreign and local private sector investment. Mozambique’s five-year $506.9 million Millennium Challenge Compact aims to reduce poverty levels through increased incomes and employment by improving water, sanitation, roads, land tenure, and agriculture. This program is expected to benefit about five million Mozambicans by 2015.
Comment on the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Lesotho compact funding lack of focus on human resource capacity and health systems
Lynch S: Medecins Sans Frantiers (Lesotho)
Medicins Sans Frontiers comment on limitations in the Millenium Challenge Corporation funding of poverty reduction programmes. They note that the allocation of funding almost entirely to capital costs with no resources for recurrent costs, such as salaries, will constrain implementation in low income countries.
Further details: /newsletter/id/32453
Diminished mental and physical function and lack of social support are associated with shorter survival in community dwelling older persons of Botswana
Clausen T, Wilson AO, Molebatsi RM, Holmboe-Ottesen G: BMC Public Health 7:144, 5 July 2007
Mortality rates for older persons in Botswana have been unavailable and little is known of predictors of mortality in old age. This study may serve as a precursor for more detailed assessments. The objective was to assess diminished function and lack of social support as indicators of short term risk of death. Older community dwelling persons with diminished cognitive or physical function, solitary daily meals and living in a small household have a significantly increased risk of rapid deterioration and death. Health policy should include measures to strengthen informal support and expand formal service provisions to older persons with poor function and limited social networks in order to prevent premature deaths.
Zimbabwe's children enter new phase of hardship
Schlein L: Voice of America News, 18 July 2007
The UN Children's Fund says the children of Zimbabwe have entered a new phase of hardship. UNICEF says millions of children are missing out on their most basic needs because of a severe drought and the dramatic deterioration of Zimbabwe's economy. The unprecedented hardship facing Zimbabwe is biting particularly hard among children and quality health care in the country's schools has all but collapsed.
Even more children are dying in Botswana
Inter Press Service, 18 June 2007
While Botswana has succeeded in decreasing its poverty rate, it is unlikely that the country will achieve the United Nations' fourth Millennium Development Goal of decreasing child mortality rates by two thirds by 2015. Figures have shown an increase in child mortality between the 1990s and the 2000s. A 2001 report by the government's Central Statistics Office (CSO) on population and housing indicates that in 1991, infant mortality in Botswana stood at 48 deaths per 1,000 live births. This figure increased to 56 deaths per 1,000 live births by 2001. Over the same period, under-five mortality increased from 63 to 74 deaths per 1,000 live births. The United Nations Children's Fund's figures for the under-five mortality rate in Botswana are worse than the Botswana government's official figures, rising from 58 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 116 in 2004. The high prevalence of HIV/AIDS is one of the factors behind this phenomenon.