News / National
Innovative vendors sell poo to desperate Zimbabweans
28 Sep 2018 at 22:38hrs | Views
Some innovative vendors at the Chirundu border post between Zimbabwe and Zambia have been selling human stools to Zimbabweans after Zambians made them take laxatives in a bid to deal with the cholera outbreak.
Travellers going into Zambia would queue outside a makeshift health check near a toilet‚ where officials would test their stools for cholera after they had apparently taken laxatives to accelerate bowel movement.
TimesLive reported the the situation was particularly hectic on Monday morning when members of an apostolic sect were asked to take the tablet that caused them to visit the toilet. No sample tested positive for the disease.
It appears that the Zambian officials where not aware that some enterprising vendors were taking advantage of those who wanted to avoid the inconvenience of taking laxatives and had set up shop.
"I just can't take laxatives when travelling; who does that? You won't get a once off running tummy but you are almost confined to a toilet all day as your bowels tend to be very loose. In as much as it was unthinkable‚ I paid $5 to buy a teaspoonful of stool and it was tested and I passed through‚" said a cross-border trader‚ who wouldn't be named.
Zambia has since stopped the tests resulting in business dying out for stool dealers.
"Travellers are assured that they would not be unnecessarily subjected to taking any drugs or vaccine‚ neither will they be required to submit stool at the border entry point‚" the Zambian health ministry said in a statement.
A poo dealer told TimesLive, "I could sell about 40 portions of stool on a good day at $4 to even $10. People did not want to take laxatives so it was good for us. Now that things are back to normal‚ its back to airtime and sim card vending for me‚" he said.
Zimbabwe's health and child care minister Dr Obadiah Moyo said the cholera death toll in Zimbabwe now stood at 49‚ with the youngest victim being an eight-month-old. He added that 21% of the dead were children under the age of five.
Travellers going into Zambia would queue outside a makeshift health check near a toilet‚ where officials would test their stools for cholera after they had apparently taken laxatives to accelerate bowel movement.
TimesLive reported the the situation was particularly hectic on Monday morning when members of an apostolic sect were asked to take the tablet that caused them to visit the toilet. No sample tested positive for the disease.
It appears that the Zambian officials where not aware that some enterprising vendors were taking advantage of those who wanted to avoid the inconvenience of taking laxatives and had set up shop.
Zambia has since stopped the tests resulting in business dying out for stool dealers.
"Travellers are assured that they would not be unnecessarily subjected to taking any drugs or vaccine‚ neither will they be required to submit stool at the border entry point‚" the Zambian health ministry said in a statement.
A poo dealer told TimesLive, "I could sell about 40 portions of stool on a good day at $4 to even $10. People did not want to take laxatives so it was good for us. Now that things are back to normal‚ its back to airtime and sim card vending for me‚" he said.
Zimbabwe's health and child care minister Dr Obadiah Moyo said the cholera death toll in Zimbabwe now stood at 49‚ with the youngest victim being an eight-month-old. He added that 21% of the dead were children under the age of five.
Source - TimesLive
