SOUTHERN AFRICA: 60 Million at Risk in Humanitarian Crisis

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jul 11 2002 (IPS) - More than 300,000 people may die over the next six months in southern Africa due to severe food shortages and the spread of disease, warned the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

At a news briefing in Geneva Wednesday, David Nabarro, executive director of WHO’s sustainable development and healthy environments division, stressed that “this is not just a food crisis. It is a total health and humanitarian crisis as big as anything we have faced over the past decade.”

Meanwhile, the executive director of the WFP, James Morris, warned Thursday that “throughout the region people are walking a thin tightrope between life and death. The combination of widespread hunger, chronic poverty and the HIV/AIDS pandemic is devastating and may soon lead to a catastrophe.”

The Rome-based United Nations agency has been calling on donors for a swift response to its appeal for 507 million dollars in aid to feed more than 10 million people in Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Mozambique, where at least 60 million people are at risk.

Morris announced a 98 million dollar donation Thursday by the United States government. Contributions have also been received from the governments of the United Kingdom, Norway, Canada and the Netherlands.

“We are particularly grateful to the United Kingdom and the United States for these extremely timely donations which are critical to saving lives,” said Morris.

But Nabarro noted that while there has been a positive response from the European Union and the United States in terms of food donations, the region’s health services are in desperate need of help.

He pointed out that low salaries and the difficult conditions in which health professionals must work has led to a “skills drain,” while AIDS has also reduced the number of trained health workers, as well as teachers.

The situation in the region has worsened over the past two years due to drought and erratic rainfall, which led to food shortages, compounded in some countries by political instability and displacement of large groups of people, reported WHO.

The governments of southern Africa have attempted to cover essential services, but on very skimpy budgets, said Nabarro, who observed that in several countries, that meant a mere 20 dollars a year per person for health care.

The spread of AIDS has also hit farming communities, leading to a decline in agricultural production, Nabarro told reporters.

Millions are facing food deficits and a lack of opportunities to earn money through agriculture. “In addition, they are eating seed grain that should be set aside for planting,” said the WHO official.

Severe malnutrition leaves people vulnerable to disease, he pointed out. “People do not very often die of starvation, particularly children. They become acutely malnourished because there is no food. And then their resistance to disease drops dramatically and they usually die of pneumonia or diarrhea or exacerbation of tuberculosis.”

Mortality rates are rising in all segments of the population in the six countries under consideration, he added.

But Malawi and Zimbabwe are at greatest risk, said Rayana Bu- Haka, a WHO specialist in emergency and humanitarian operations. In some parts of Malawi, malnutrition has risen from six to 19 percent of the population in the past few months, while acute undernutrition increased from three to 6.5 percent.

Two and a half million children under five are at extreme risk in Malawi and Zimbabwe, said Nils Kastberg, director of emergency operations for the UN children’s fund (UNICEF).

Health authorities are particularly disturbed by the rise in maternal mortality, which in some areas has risen twofold. Tuberculosis and acute respiratory infections are also on the rise, said Nabarro.

“We usually say that if the crude mortality of a population exceeds one dead for 10,000 people per day, we are facing a severe humanitarian crisis,” and in some parts of southern Africa, mortality is already well above that level, Nabarro reported.

In fact, the crisis could lead to 300,000 “excess” deaths in the coming six months, although that is a conservative estimate, he added.

The UN agencies are calling on industrialised countries and donors to come up with 560 million dollars, including the 507 million sought by the WFP. The rest of the funds are needed for health and nutrition programmes.

Nabarro underlined that “food on its own, in this kind of crisis, is not enough to ensure survival.”

He also noted that the problem of potable water supplies must be addressed in a region where cholera is endemic and the risk of its spread is growing as a result of the population displacement and hygiene problems.