ON Wednesday the Lusaka City Council (LCC) announced that it had closed 30 schools in Kanyama Township following an outbreak of typhoid.
The move taken by the local authority was meant to prevent the spread of the disease which broke out last week in the sprawling township and has so far claimed the life of an 11-year-old girl.
Typhoid is a common bacterial disease which is transmitted by ingestion of food or water contaminated with feces of an infected person which contain the bacterium salmonella.
Some of the common symptoms of typhoid include fever, headache, general body weakness and diarrhoea.
Even though the Government has assured the nation that at the moment there are no fresh cases of the highly contagious disease that have been recorded, we still feel that the decision taken by LCC to close the schools was correct because of the unsanitary conditions that are said to be obtaining at these learning institutions.
Research has shown that the bacterium that causes typhoid thrives in dirty environments and if the local authority had not taken this bold decision, there is every likelihood that we could have witnessed an escalation of the disease.
Apart from closing schools, we feel that the local authority needs to embark on intensive sensitisation campaigns on how to avoid catching typhoid.
The campaigns should not be restricted to Kanyama Township alone but should be extended to other parts of the city as well because there is a possibility that the disease could spread to other townships.
The outbreak of typhoid in Lusaka is not the first in the history of our nation, year-in-year out, cases of the disease have been reported in various parts of the country. It is against this background that we want to implore local authorities countrywide to be proactive by putting in place measures that will help avert this deadly disease.
Local authorities should ensure that they provide residents with clean water and sanitary facilities, failure to do this is what has given rise to shallow wells which are a common feature in most townships. Shallow wells are known to be a source of most waterborne diseases because the water is prone to contamination.
We would also like to make an earnest appeal to members of the public on the need to observe basic hygiene such as boiling drinking water and developing a culture of washing hands with soap after using the toilet.
Open defecation should be avoided as it could lead to contamination of water sources .
Members of the public would do well to avoid buying their vegetables from street vendors because there is always a possibility that they were irrigated using water from sewerage sources.
There is no denying that adherence to these basic hygiene rules would prevent a lot of unnecessary suffering and deaths in our communities.  Opinion