Report from Sr Andrea

Greetings from Harare. Trust you are all keeping well.

Just a small update and follow-up re: the 5000euros.

The situation here especially in the hard hit areas by the cyclone is slowly getting calm with the people receiving food handouts and many who lost everything being taken care of in temporary camps. There has been an overwhelming response to help from locals and those abroad, we are grateful for that. Many questions arise in the silence of our hearts especially those who were most hit. The intermediate and long-term effects have already started to surface with patients who were on chronic medications like hypertension, diabetes, TB and HIV/AIDS now surfacing having gone out of medication for several days, malaria cases on the rise and risk of cholera outbreak – already reported in Beira Mozambique.

Therefore with the unfolding of events, our 2 hospitals in Manicaland: St Joseph and Regina Coeli are already being faced by some of these challenges. In Regina Coeli it is more the rise in malaria cases, while St Joseph is getting the bulk of people from cyclone hit areas.