Talk:2008 Zimbabwean cholera outbreak

Why Should People Care?
I'm going to play devil's advocate; Why should I and other people care about this? (This comment was written by FDD19 [ Talk ] on December 6, 2008 at 16:46 GMT)
 * This is a global crisis but no one seems to realise it. The cholera is spreading into neighbouring countries infecting people of those states and putting a strain on their health services. This means that the economies of those nations is damaged and things spiral downwards forcing people to leave therefore causing refugees. Consequently, these refugess move to third world countries and put a strain on their services which causes other problems. Moreover, Zimbabwe was a huge exporter of food. Now, it doesn't export as much and relies on imports, Zimbabwe is helping to increase the world food crisis and therefore make food prices increase which means that inflation rises and the values of stocks plummet which brings about the credit crunch. While Zimbabwe isn't the sole cause of the credit crunch it obviously has helped. The world is all linked in - there is no such thing as being independant and if every country can provide more food than it needs itself we will all feel the benefits. So resolving Zimbabwe is one less problem country off the world's hands and less time and resources will be wasted - something to all our advantage....  Mangwanani  (talk) 16:12, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde (John Donne) - people are dying, enough said.Babakathy (talk) 17:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Exactly, but by the first comment made, I took the writer to be the sort of person who didn't care about such things.  Mangwanani  (talk) 17:28, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Quite. Babakathy (talk) 17:50, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess a social concience isn't a good enough reason?210.215.75.3 (talk) 05:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism
I see the article has been vandalised quite a bit today. If this childish vandalism keeps on happening, I think there's a good case for taking measures to hinder any destructive activity e.g. semi-protection. - Nabokov (talk) 15:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It's just one IP address doing it, and they got several warnings. I'd prefer if we can avoid semi-protection as there are some anon. editors making useful contributions. Babakathy (talk) 16:08, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Cleaning
This article will have serious potential for GA and FA as long as things are maintained, ie make sure all web references have title, publisher and accessdate sections filled in as you go along - makes less work when reviews come along. Also keep dates etc to wiki format and don't type dashes - such they need to be &NDASH; (small letters) to produce – Just tips to maintain as one goes along to make less work in the end...  Mangwanani  (talk) 20:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Now that the epidemic has subsided, it would be a good time to appraise the long-term state of this article. At present it still closely resembles a newspaper article or news review. To be more like an encyclopedia article we can prune much of the material that is not actually what the cholera outbreak was about. Enormous space has been allocated to public statements that, while of interest at the time, are in fact quite irrelevant to the actual subject. Numerous quotations are not needed (because they distract the reader from the issues) except in a short section to show that political figures attempted to derive some gain from the tragedy (keeping the references). Some other sections can be treated in the same way. Comments?--Sinazita (talk) 13:13, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Time to change article name?
We have now entered 2009, and this cholera outbreak is in no way over. Should we change the name to "2008–2009 Zimbabwean cholera outbreak"? --Eivind (t) 14:08, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, unless it is the convention to name epidemics by when they start - does anyone know? Babakathy (talk) 14:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Not as I know of, and after looking at other articles on epidemics, I can't see that we have any convention (at least not carried out). --Eivind (t) 14:39, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, i chose to be bold and just do it ... (: --Eivind (t) 15:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:World Vision.png
The image File:World Vision.png is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
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 * Fixed. Babakathy (talk) 05:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

B class assessment
I think that this article has a good chance at GA status when the outbreak ends. A few small changes I'd suggest:


 * All of the refs that are only used in the Image:Zimcholeracases2.png caption can be put into a single citation. It's not necessary to give a separate ref number to each and every webpage, and this will make the caption more readable.
 * There are a small number simple typos (for example, "expectedn" under #Impact) and grammar errors (for example, "internationally–funded emergency clinics" should not be hyphenated).
 * You've used WP:DASHes in a few places that should actually have WP:HYPHENs. (GA shouldn't care; FA will.)
 * The short blockquote in #Impact should probably not be a blockquote (which is generally reserved for quotations of more than four lines or more than one paragraph); instead, it should be inline.
 * Under #Spread, "Dr." Anthony Turton should probably be just plain Anthony Turton; Wikipedia doesn't usually bother with academic degrees. However, his title (employment or specialty) might be relevant.

In terms possible expansion, if there's good information about what needs to be done to stop this specific epidemic -- boil water? replace old sewage pipes? -- then that might be interesting. I assume that this information would come largely from the various entities that are involved in the response. In other words, if they had million, what would they do with it?

Hope this helps, WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 28 January 2009 (UTC) (who is not watching this page)

What about bringing back the colonial powers? I'm sure they could reconstruct the whole country in a few years. M99 87.59.102.169 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:33, 22 June 2009 (UTC).

Related: Cholera outbreak in Kenya
Not that this is deriving from the Zimbabwean outbreak which has mostly hit the rest of Southern Africa, but a separate outbreak is also going on in Kenya since late 2008, primarily concentrated in Eastern, Northeastern, Nyanza and Western. Over 20 dead and over 600 infected:. --Toussaint (talk) 05:29, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Updating the "Zimbabwean cholera outbreak" page
I will be adding a “Society and Culture” section to the existing Cholera article for a class assignment, and I will probably edit this page as well. I will update a lot of the information and sources, since there have been a lot of new developments. I think there are a lot of relevant references that should be incorporated into this article, such as National Science Foundation President Rita Colwell's take on the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe.1 Does anyone have any suggestions for specific areas that need improvement/updating, or other sections you would like to see added?

1 Rita Colwell, "Oceans, Climate, and Health: Cholera as a Model of Infectious Diseases in a Changing Environment." Lecture, Civic Scientist Lecture Series at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Houston, TX, March 7, 2013. Accessed September 16, 2013, http://www.bakerinstitute.org/events/civic-scientist-lecture-series-rita-colwell

Kimmyfromtexas (talk) 21:33, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi, this sounds good indeed. The page has not been updated extensively since the outbreak started to calm down (end of first quarter 2009) so I think there is a quite a lot which could be updated on Good luck! Babakathy (talk) 16:08, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) stats: mainly used ref 1
 * 2) politics
 * 3) response

Thank you! I have been working on updating the article as per your suggestions, and I will upload the edits to the page soon. I do still have a question though, regarding the title "politicization." I have been trying to find a section title that will be easily understandable to the larger Wikipedia community, while still capturing the spirit of the text. What do you think of a new section title? Do you think other Wikipedians are too attached to "Politicization" as a section? What about something along the lines of "Political Influences"? Kimmyfromtexas (talk) 05:43, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Peer review of the contributions of Kimmyfromtexas
The political conditions that created the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe added a lot to the “Zimbabwean cholera outbreak” article. Most of the improvements that this article needs are revision. You need a good transitional idea between the first sentence (“Because of its well-organized health care system…” and the second sentence (As the outbreak and heath crisis grew worse…”), as these ideas did not connect together. You seem to favor the passive voice (is, are, was, were, be, to be). Try using independent clauses before dependent clauses to make yourself use more descriptive verbs. There are a few minor subject/verb agreement issues. Also pay attention to filler phrases like “of course”. Great job in maintaining a scholarly tone throughout the “Zimbabwean cholera outbreak” article. Try not to demonize Mugabe (you referred to him as “dictator” at one point), but academically present how his denial of the outbreak exacerbated its severity. Also mention why Mugabe ignored the outbreak- there has to be some reason he chose not to acknowledge the outbreak! Overall, great job!

Samanthaplove (talk) 05:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposed move
The 2008 "outbreak" per se is over, cholera continues, the article deals with cholera in Zimbabwe overall (including history, prevention, etc), so I plan to move the article to Cholera in Zimbabwe unless someone has a good reason not to. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 15:57, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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Modernize article
Hey all! I made a fairly large edit revamping the lead and felt I should explain myself here. It seems like this article, like many other disease outbreak articles, had lots of work and sources put into it while the outbreak was ongoing, but then once the outbreak ended, interest waned. I'll take a look through and try to update the sources and info with retrospective assessments which have come out since the outbreak ended. Any help (or thoughts/opinions/suggestions) would be much appreciated. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 02:04, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

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4,369 deaths or 4,288?
Hello

I noticed that the introduction of the article say that there were 98,596 cases of cholera and 4,369 deaths reported, while however the infobox say that there were 98,592 cases and 4,288 deaths? Which is it?

Okama-San (talk) 21:36, 25 November 2019 (UTC)