A few weeks earlier, most of his playmates were infected and treated for cholera.
“In our village, we do not have water, hence, we fetch untreated water from the lake,” confessed Kalala’s father, Martin Ntoumba.
Contaminated water Ngandanjika and Kalambayi are currently the two health zones in Lomami where most cholera deaths and confirmed cases are being reported.
The only market—located in Matamba, in the Kanda-Kanda health zone—which is visited by nearly 5,000 people on a weekly basis, has neither water points nor toilets.
“In rural areas where the epidemic has found a fertile ground due to acute water shortages and poor sanitation practices, people hardly differentiate between safe water and contaminated water,” said Malick Faye, IFRC Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Regional Disaster Response Team member (RDRT).
“Beyond these realities and constraints, the wells from which communities fetch water are unprotected and, in a context where open defecation is common, the water points are easily contaminated by human waste,” he added.
The burden of providing water to families rests with women who are often helped by their children.
Red Cross volunteers promote safe practices With many communities in DRC having no access to clean drinking water, hygiene and sanitation, disseminating messages of good practices on cholera prevention techniques remains central to an effective response.
Between January and March 2018, the DRC Red Cross was at the forefront, providing lifesaving sensitization messages on cholera, reaching 213,329 people with safe practices in water, sanitation and hygiene in five health zones of the Lomami province, namely Kabinda, Kanda-Kanda, Kamiji, Ngandanjika and Kalambayi.
“We deployed 192 volunteers in affected health zones to spread awareness messages around cholera, and ensure communities are safe, with communities in remote areas being our main target,” said Joseph Kanyinda, vice-president of the Mwene-Ditu Red Cross Branch.