MOZAMBIQUE: Health workers killed in tragic case of ignorance

MAPUTO, 16 March 2009 (IRIN) - "Nampula has one of the highest [case loads] and deaths due to cholera, and our treatment and prevention strategy involved purifying contaminated wells and boreholes," Fernanda Teixeira, the national society's secretary-general, told IRIN.

"When one of the cholera victims in Quinga village died soon after chlorine had been used to decontaminate a well, the bereaved people in the local community got angry. They rushed to the conclusion that the Red Cross was spreading cholera in the wells, when they were in fact putting in chlorine," Teixeira explained.

The two Red Cross workers were killed in Nampula's Mogincual district, one of the poorest in the country, on 26 February. A week later, the cholera panic spread to the neighbouring districts of Angoche and Moma, and two policemen were killed as mobs attacked health posts. Seven Red Cross volunteers were hospitalized.

"The team of volunteers we have doing our work in villages like Quinga are local people who have stayed most of their lives in those villages. They are known in the communities they work," Teixeira said.

"Since the cholera riots broke out two weeks ago we have been forced to stop all our health work in Nampula until the situation returns to normal."

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