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The Red Cross also responded to the food crisis, assisting particularly vulnerable people, such as those living with HIV, with food distributions. Through its community home-based care programmes across the country, the Red Cross continues to support people living with HIV, who are particularly susceptible to diseases such as cholera.
Hygiene promotion
Thousands of people were reached with cholera prevention messages, stressing the importance of hand washing, boiling drinking water and cooking food thoroughly.
Red Cross volunteers distributed blankets, jerry cans, bars of soap and latrines, along with water purification tablets. Cholera kits containing oral re-hydration solution, antibiotics, needles and gloves, were also distributed.
As part of a long-term development project, the British Red Cross and the European Union have co-funded the drilling of 70 new boreholes, and the repair of 130 hand pumps and 400 latrines, serving 100,000 people, in the Mount Darwin district of Zimbabwe.
Emergency response units
For four months, the British Red Cross provided support through its sanitation emergency response unit (ERU), which specialises in improving sanitation and promoting better hygiene practices. The British ERU was one of seven specialist teams from around the world, which were deployed to Zimbabwe by the Federation. The other Red Cross teams included basic healthcare as well as further water and sanitation support.
Activities carried out by these teams included producing thousands of litres of safe drinking water and training local Red Cross staff and volunteers in the construction and maintenance of water treatment facilities.
The British Red Cross ERU handed over its equipment to local Red Cross teams that were trained to respond to new cholera outbreaks.
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