Africa-Press – Angola. The city of Luena, capital of the province of Moxico, is being invaded by rubbish spots that are appearing on the main avenues in the peripheral area, constituting an attack on public health.
This Thursday, heaps of garbage on the main avenues of what was once considered one of the cleanest cities in the country, with residents, street vendors and customers depositing all types of waste outdoors, due to lack of containers.
Garbage is notorious at the entrance to the Centralidade do Luena, known as “Heróis de Cangamba”, at the eastern end of the Mercado Municipal do Moxico, right next to the food stalls, as well as the main avenues and streets.
The situation is starting to be worrying, at a time when outbreaks of preventable and neglected diseases are increasing, such as typhoid fever, malaria, diarrheal and acute respiratory diseases, causing floods in the pediatric section of the General Hospital of Moxico (HGM).
Regarding the increase in garbage, Regina da Silva, a vegetable seller for three years at the municipal market, accused residents adjacent to the square of flooding the commercial site with garbage, claiming lack of space or container to deposit waste.
Félix Bernardo, an employee of a security company in the Centralidade do Luena, criticized the behavior of residents, who he expected to be different because they live in an urban area, but do not hesitate to throw garbage on the ground even under warnings.
Residents Ana Maria Cahilo and Ivete Manuela discourage the practices of outdoor waste disposal, as it is harmful to public health.
In this regard, the municipal director of Basic Sanitation, Ivo Mário, informed that technical problems, in addition to the delay in funds to be allocated to garbage collection companies, are at the root of the delay in the treatment of waste scattered throughout the city.
Meanwhile, the supervisor of the Environmental Health program at the Provincial Department of Public Health, Henriqueta Marques, reaffirmed the need to improve the population’s environmental education, in addition to defending the creation of a sanitary landfill to store garbage.
The provincial supervisor of the Malaria Programme, Elias Pereira, reported that the deterioration of basic sanitation had increased the morbidity and mortality of malaria, the main cause of death in the country, with 60,000 cases registered in the first quarter of this year alone. , with more than 20 deaths, mostly children.
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