Amid the rising concerns of typhoid outbreak, the Harare City Council and the National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority are planning to levy a complete ban on fishing and its related activities. If ban gets active then no fishing would be allowed in contaminated dams.

News of complete ban came day after when police stopped the cleaning operation that was taken out by Kuwadzana residents. As per the data, 900 people have already been diagnosed with typhoid and many more can be detected in coming days.

Giving more information about the worsening situation, Tendai Mahachi, who is Harare’s town clerk, said that investigation have revealed that fishes in the dams contain infection. This has led them ask park officials as well to stop fishing in the surrounding lakes. It would take one to two days to have complete fishing ban.

Some of the hurdles that the local authorities would have to face are to stop the selling of fishes which are heavily contaminated. Mahachi said that fishes are being sold in the night and these days no single fish is without infection. They have to make sure that fishermen are not able to sell infected fishes in the market.

Mahachi said that one of the main reasons of the contamination is the passing of raw sewerage that comes from Chitungwiza and directly enters to the water. Once the ban gets active then they would checking all the fish shops in the fish market. The shops which would be found up to the mark would be given a certificate and then only they would be allowed to operate.

Another thing that they have to do is to treat boreholes through which raw sewerage enters and spreads cholera. Mahachi was reported as saying, “Most of the boreholes are contaminated and we will decommission most of them. The sewer that led to cholera is also affecting the boreholes”.