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Democracy Factfile on Botswana

   This is the second in a four part series on the impact of floods in southern Afn.ca. The flooding in southern Africa that has devastated some parts of the region, leaving hundreds dead and around 1.25 million people homeless, has increased the risk of epidemics such as malaria and cholera in the region.

    Having worked for weeks to ensure that flood victims are rescued and given shelter, aid workers and governments are now focusing on getting medicine:) to the displaced people. "The priority now is to make sure that the public health delivery system in the affected countries is working efficiently to avert the possibility of epidemics," said President Festus Mogae of Botswana at an emergency summit in Maputo.

    Health ministries in the affected countries have issued a maximum alert against a possible outbreak of cholera and malaria, particularly in the accommodation centres, where hundreds of thousand of people have found shelter after losing their homes to the floods.

    The alert follows an alarming increase in the number of cases of diarrhoea and malaria cases. While Mozambique has suffered the bulk of the disaster, Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe have all been affected.

    In Botswana, it is estimated that in the coming months, about 100,000 people are going to be infected with malaria. The health minister, Joy Phumaphi, said, "In the flooded areas, about 1 ,500 patients are currently suffering from malaria while an additional 13,000 people have begun showing symptoms of the disease."

    In Mozambique, "the overcrowded conditions under which the displaced people now live pose a danger of an outbreak of both malaria and cholera, which could affect at least 800,000 people," said World Health Organisation (WHO) representative in Mozambique, Carlos Tiny.

    He added, that as a mosquito-infected region, malaria will pose a bigger health problem for all the flood victims in southern Africa.

    Birkinesh Ameneshewa, a malaria entomologist for the WHO-Southern Africa Malaria Control Programme (WHOMSAMC) based in Zimbabwe, said, "Malaria is one of the causes of sickness and death in the region. It kills between 200,000 and 300,000 people each year."

    More are expected to die if nothing is done to prevent the disease. WHOMSAMC has advised that urgent resettlement of displaced people in Mozambique because the accommodation centres are overcrowded and lack supplies of clean drinking water and other basic sanitation conditions. Displaced people affected with cholera have been isolated and mobile clinics have been set up in affected areas, where teams have been dispatched to treat patients. "Sanitary conditions and water treatment facilities have been put in place to limit the effects of a cholera and malaria epidemic throughout the affected parts," said Ameneshewa. women and children under five," added Ameneshewa.

    However, the displacement of people and the badly damaged roads have made it more difficult for proper control measures to be carried out because people are scattered in small groups. To combat this problem, the regional malaria control programme in collaboration with the health ministries in the affected countries is trying to gather all the displaced people and put them in larger camps.

    WHOSAMC added that health personnel working on malaria control in the region frequently faced poor or no access to updated malaria books, manuals and journals. Southern Africa is facing malaria threat at a time when it is experiencing a shortage of malaria specialists. Friedrich Mareien, a South African expert said, "the immediate diagnosis of malaria in southern Africa is an important component in the battle against the disease but was not readily available in most rural health centres."

    Diagnosis of malaria is a difficult process that requires skills of highly trained microscopists to detect the plasmodium in stained blood slides. Rural areas are disadvantaged because of lack of such equipment.