Mozambique: Cholera disinformation spreads panic – AIM

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Cholera disinformation spreads panic – AIM

8:11 CAT | 06 Mar 2020

Representative picture: Notícias

Disinformation about cholera is spreading panic among communities in the districts of Nacala-Port and Nacala-a-Velha, in the northern Mozambican province of Nampula, to such an extent that some families are abandoning their homes, and fleeing to villages supposedly free of the disease.

According to a report in Thursday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, rumours are circulating in the two districts that the primary school text books, distributed free of charge by the Education Ministry, are infected with cholera and can transmit the disease.

The directors of schools where a bread and butter snack is distributed to the pupils have also been accused of spreading cholera.

The result has been that parents have forbidden their children to go to school and some families have even fled from Nacala altogether. Many schools in the two districts are deserted and some have closed their doors for lack of pupils.

The local authorities have been working with communities and with parents to persuade them that there is no truth in the rumours and it is safe for the children to return to school.

But some community and political leaders have been threatened, accused of being responsible for the spread of cholera. One of those threatened was Paulo Nipeca, the first secretary of the ruling Frelimo Party in the Napueia area of Nacala-a-Velha.

He told “Noticias” that is not the first time he has been threatened, and that last year unknown assailants tied him up and destroyed his property.

Disinformation about cholera is recurrent in the north of the country, sometimes leading to attacks against health units and health workers. The very people attempting to control the disease are accused of spreading it.

Nampula Provincial Governor Manuel Rodrigues said the rumours are a form of destabilisation, which diverts the attention of the public away from the need to observe basic rules of individual and collective hygiene.

Those who spread disinformation, he said, are “enemies of development and of improvements in community living conditions”. They should be identified and held responsible for their actions.

There is indeed a cholera outbreak in Nampula, which currently affects Nacala-a-Velha, Memba and Mogovolas districts and Nampula city. According to the Nampula health authorities, in the last two weeks of February, 349 people were diagnosed with the disease, one of whom, in Mogovolas, died.

Source: AIM