The Sunday News
Munyaradzi Musiiwa, Features Reporter
IN the late 80s and early 90s when the country was still celebrating majority rule, general freedom and equality while also still learning to be autonomous from its former colonial masters, the festivities were cut short by the emergence of the then killer disease, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Aids).
The disease which is caused by Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) was so unfathomable, mercurial and capricious.
Medical experts and scientists had to dig deep to find a remedy. It was a global pandemic which fast consumed lives within a flash of the light.
The pandemic was monikered with a plethora of synonyms peculiar to languages spoken as well as how it affected regions in which it wreaked havoc. Many African countries plunged into abject poverty as they grappled with the disease and neglected other productive sectors.
Likewise, Zimbabwe allocated huge sums of resources in trying to curb the pandemic and even introduced a levy.
Back then there was little knowledge pertaining to how the disease was transmitted and how it could be contained.
The dire situation was worsened by denial emanating from stigma associated with the disease.
The insinuation was it can only be acquired by having multiple sexual partners with which you indulge in reckless sexual behaviours.
For women, they were viewed as prostitutes and of loose morals.
However, the world heaved a huge sigh of relief when researchers and scientists had a breakthrough, introducing antiretroviral treatment to suppress the virus. More and more discoveries and innovations are being made to ensure that people are living with HIV maintain good health and restore their strong immune system.
Some drugs are now suppressing the virus to undetectable levels.
Zimbabwe is one of the few African countries that have managed to minimise the spread of the disease as well as reducing Aids and HIV related deaths. The country launched vigorous campaigns to reduce new incidences and enhancing HIV testing to ensure that people get treatment early.
Just as we were about to take a nap after almost defeating Aids, the country is now wrestling another deadly disease of cancer. It has come in various forms. The most dominant ones are cervical cancer, prostate, colon, cancer of the pelvis, small cell and breast cancer among others.
While cervical cancer has been suffocated by a vigorous campaign encouraging women to get screened which is being led by First Lady Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa, other forms are wreaking havoc and consuming lives rapidly.
The most disheartening thing is that the cancer treatment is a multibillion-dollar industry. It’s expensive. Very expensive.
One of the patients who was undergoing Targeted Therapy cancer treatment conceded that he had literally used every penny he had worked for his entire life. He sold his properties including a house.
Unfortunately, regardless of all these efforts in trying to survive and extend his lifespan by a few months, he eventually succumbed to the disease. So painful. He literally left nothing for his children some of which were still in school. The family had to start afresh.
Since the turn of the millennium more people in Zimbabwe started being diagnosed of cancer.
Unfortunately, most general practitioners cannot detect cancer early and most patients are diagnosed at Stage Four when there are left with few months to live.
There are only 20 oncologists in the country with a population of about 14 million people. With the rate at which people are being diagnosed of cancer it is practically impossible for the specialist doctors to render services to all of them.
A few that are privileged fly to India and other neighbouring countries to get treatment after forking out a lot of money.
There are so many concepts and notions around how the disease is fast spreading and why many people are being diagnosed and succumbing to it in the post-2000 Zimbabwe.
It was there before year 2000 but the situation was not as bad as it has become in the past few years.
In trying to find solutions, some chemists in the country have made observations that poor water treatment processes and lack of due diligence by authorities responsible for safe water supply and distribution has contributed immensely in the fast spreading of cancer in the country.
The chemists observed that most local authorities particularly urban councils, use obsolete water treatment methods.
Chemists have noted that carcinogens that stimulate cell mutation which in turn causes cancer are escaping water treatment processes by most local authorities.
Chemical experts have alleged that the dire situation is also being worsened by some bottled water and drinks that are not being properly inspected that find their way to the market that also have carcinogens.
According to the experts, there is a need for most urban councils to change their technology and employ more chemists in the water treatment processes.
Zimbabwe Chemical Society Registrar and founding executive president Mr Fastino Madzima said most urban councils were using water treatment designs and technologies that were set up in the 1950s and are not effectively treating water.
Mr Madzima said most carcinogens were escaping water treatment processes.
He said carcinogens were coming from persistent organic chemicals, heavy metals and medicinal effluents as well as industrial chemicals.
“Most of the water that we drink is not properly treated. Some carcinogens are escaping the water treatment processes and this is why we are having more cancer cases mostly in towns and cities. We have challenges in water treatment which has been much talked about. Chemists started to talk about it and researches being done through the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education Science and Technology
Development the pollution of Lake Chivero since 90s,” he said.
Said Mr Madzima: “At the moment the pollution has reached alarming levels and again there are solutions that are being offered. In order for us to get clean water there is a need for the involvement of chemists. Chemists have the capacity to remove the pollutants. So only chemists can remove the pollutants because the pollutants are chemicals.
“At the moment we have a number of researches that we did in terms of the removal of the pollutants. If you want to do a feasibility studies to establish whether the current water treatment processes are effective. Some of the water treatment processes being implemented at the moment and even the chemicals were used in the 1950s thereabout,” he said.
