Cholera Devastates Zimbabwe

In "Beyond Cholera: Zimbabwe's Worsening Crisis", it talks about how the economic collapse and deteriorating infrastructure in Zimbabwe has led to a major outbreak in Cholera. Zimbabwean's must flee from their country and risk their lives by crossing the Limpopo River in order to seek refuge in Southern Africa. Cholera is not the only crisis in Zimbabwe, HIV, political problems, and malnutrition also plague the country. Cholera has been an ongoing problem, however, in the last few months it has continued to worsen. MSF, also known as Medicines Sans Frontiers has some teams stationed in Zimbabwe and others helping refugees seek immediate medical treatment, so far they have treated more than 75% of the infected population but the Cholera outbreak continues. Lack of access to clean water and blocked or burst sewage can be pinpointed as reasons for the outbreak of Cholera, but these all point back to the break down of the economy and government. Increases in Cholera cases have been seen because of the shutting down of many medical centers due to lack of supplies, money, and staff. This is a national problem in Zimbabwe but not much international attention has been shed on this issue of Cholera, the MSF program is one of the only groups trying to help resolve this. It's impact on Zimbabwe is that so far only 45,000 patients have been treated for Cholera and the problem still continues to worsen with the downfall of the economy and government. This paper was written in February of 2009 and was written by a team of MSF workers, the link to this paper is http://www.msf.org.uk/beyond_cholera_zimbabwe_20090217.news.
The writer's attitude toward the subject is not really positive or negative, it is more factual. The writer is trying to stress how important this Cholera outbreak is and show how it is affecting so many people and we should try to do more to help Zimbabwe resolve this. Also, the author shows sympathy for the people of Zimbabwe and the struggle they must go through to get medical treatment for Cholera. " It is a constant challenge to keep up with increasing patient numbers. We are running out of ward space and beds for the patients.", this quote shows the anxiety of the MSF team trying to help the Zimbabwean's and it shows how more support is needed. No, the article does not give an author's name just that it was writte by some members of the MSF staff. Yes, the article provides much factual details to support the thoughts and ideas of the MSF staff on the Cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe. No, different viewpoints are not expressed in the article, it is all viewed from a staff member's perspective, at no point is the Cholera outbreak talked about through a Zimbabwean's view. Yes, the article is very informative and convincing because it gives so much in depth descriptions about the problem's in Zimbabwe and what has led to the Cholera outbreaks as well as what the people must do to get treatment.
A connection between this article and History of Epidemic Disease class is the transfer of the infectious disease Cholera, for example, Cholera is transferred through unclean water and anywhere that hygiene and sanitation are not very good as is HIV with sharing unclean needles. I have learned that more time should be spent on helping the important crises in other nations and that they should be publicized better. I thought the article was very interesting because I had no idea that there was even a Cholera outbreak going on in Zimbabwe and it opened my eyes as to what some people have to do in order to get medical attention.