With the recent shocking increase in cholera outbreaks in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, there is a renewed determination by Ministry of Health and Lusaka City Council to address the obvious hygiene and sanitation challenges that towns and cities across Zambia have been facing over many years. They are keen to learn from the successful experience following the introduction of CHCs in many urban settings across Zimbabwe, after the outbreak in 2009 which affected 10,000 lives and killed 4,000 people due to poor public health controls. Zimbabwe AHEAD successfully used CHCs in Mutare to curtail the spread of cholera and no lives were lost in CHC areas.
GIZ (German Aid) who are strong supporters and funders of the National WASH sector in Zambia, invited the CEO of Africa AHEAD to spend a couple of days in Lusaka in July 2018, to develop a Concept Paper for the introduction of CHCs into their programme. Two days were spent planning how GIZ, in close collaboration with the Lusaka City Commission (LCC), could best begin implementing CHCs in the high-density peri-urban compounds around Lusaka.
It is likely that the urban-CHC experience that the Zim AHEAD team gained from responding to cholera outbreaks in Zimbabwe ten years ago will be very helpful. A small delegation from the City Council plan to come and see our urban CHCs so that they can better appreciate for themselves how both the urban and rural CHC model could be applied in Zambia.