Plans to continue raise awareness about diarrhoea

By Khanyisa Tabata
01 February 2011

Measures to reduce high case load of children with diarrhoea in the province have been put in place by provincial Health Department.

Spokesperson for the Department Zolani Zenzile says the plan to combat diarrhoea will continue until April this year.

During this period, the Department has and will implement measures to optimally manage children with diarrhoea.

“The Department in collaboration with the City of Cape Town and community based health organizations have developed an integrated strategy to deal with the seasonal surges of diarrhoea in especially 'hot-spot' areas.

“The interventions at Primary Health Care facilities will include amongst other things, rapid triage of all children on entry into a primary health care facility,” said Zenzile.

He added that the steps that have been taken to raise awareness to prevent and manage diarrhoea and they are, health promotion programmes aimed at preventing diarrhoea and promotion appropriate home treatment for dehydration.

Raising awareness of the danger of dehydration on children and promoting the use of serving, salt, and sugar home remedy.

The disease occurs commonly where there are shared water and sanitation facilities.

Zenzile says the hotspots in the Cape Town Metropole where most cases of fatal diarrhoea were reported the previous summer are Gugulethu, Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Delft, Bloekombos, Walacedene, Langa, Du Noon, Imizamo Yethu, Crossroads and Brown's farm.