More than a million people throughout Zimbabwe have received assistance from Red Cross recently, as the country is beset by a food crisis and the worst cholera epidemic in Africa for more than 15 years.

Working closely with Zimbabwe Red Cross, the International Red Cross movement has played a major role in contributing to cholera response operations, covering almost 60 per cent of cholera cases countrywide.

Funds raised by our Zimbabwe Crisis Appeal 2009 are contributing to the International Red Cross response, providing non-food assistance, health care, water and sanitation facilities, hygiene promotion, technical support to national health services, and capacity building to the Zimbabwe Red Cross, particularly for volunteers working with highly specialised Emergency Response Units.

Although the rate of infection has dropped over the past months, the risk remains in Zimbabwe, according to a recent Red Cross report '100,000 cases: The spectre of cholera'. This report is downloadable below.

What is Red Cross doing?

Zimbabwe Red Cross is supporting some of the country's most vulnerable people, and is working closely with the global Red Cross movement to provide immediate food aid, improve access to safe and adequate water and sanitation, and improve awareness on the spread of disease.

Mid to long-term efforts hope to give 665,000 households in high-risk areas sustainable access to clean water and basic sanitation. Longer term agricultural programs are also underway, to provide people a way of rebuilding livelihoods and producing their own food.

Zimbabwe Red Cross delivers food during the crisis. Photo: IFRC.

Women and their children queue to receive cholera kits in Harare, Zimbabwe, in the deadliest outbreak in Africa in 15 years. Photo: Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo.

Conditions are deteriorating in Zimbabwe as millions need food aid and cholera spreads throughout the country. Photo: IFRC/Matt Cochrane.