Tue, 09 Jan 2018 08:25:46 +0000
By MICHAEL MIYOBA
THE cholera outbreak in Petauke has halted our planned soccer festival which was meant to educate people on various health issues, Rural Sports Foundation (RSF) Director Job Mwanza has said.
On 5th January, Minister of Sports, Youth and Child Development Moses Mawere announced the ban on sporting gatherings at a briefing in Lusaka.
Mawere noted that suspension of all sporting activities will be effective until relevant authorities’ advice on when things would return to normal sporting programmes.
And speaking in an interview with Daily Nation Sports from Petauke, Mwanza noted that the district had recorded four suspected cases of people affected with cholera.
Mwanza said the two-day sports festival which was scheduled to run from 6th to 7th January has been pushed to a later date due to the escalating cholera outbreak.
He said that the decision to postpone the tournament meant to educate more than five hundred people on hygiene issues, follows the ban on sporting gatherings in cholera-prone areas.
“We have decided to postpone the sports festival which was meant to empower the local people on various health issues affecting them. This is because of the suspected cholera cases reported in Sinda district.
“And since government banned sporting gatherings in cholera-prone areas, we decided to comply as we do not want the disease to escalate further,” Mwanza said.
Mwanza reaffirmed his organization’s commitment to uplifting the lives of people in rural areas through sports.
