Mutare, Zimbabwe – In Zimbabwe, open pits left by informal gold miners and filled with stagnant water create breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Health experts say mining is worsening a surge in malaria infections, already spiralling due to funding cuts and climate change.
In Penhalonga, a gold-rich area in eastern Zimbabwe, George Mutsoka woke up one morning suffering from fatigue, a severe headache and joint aches. The 43-year-old artisanal miner was too weak to work, so he went to rest at his home in Chishakwe village, just outside Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, Mutare. By late afternoon, his situation had deteriorated and he sought help from a village health worker. He tested positive for malaria and the health worker gave him treatment. “I took the medicine for three days. After a week, I had recovered,” he told RFI. Mutsoka soon returned to Penhalonga, where he works as an informal miner searching for gold. Ideal conditions for mosquitoes There are thousands of artisanal miners in Penhalonga, who carry out open-pit and riverbed mining. Malaria cases have been spreading fast in this mining community and others across Zimbabwe, as stagnant water pools left by miners prove ideal conditions for the mosquitoes that transmit the disease. Virginia Chakandinakira, the village health worker in Chishakwe who diagnosed and treated Mutsoka, says that all the malaria cases she documented in her community this year originated elsewhere. “I have treated four people. Interestingly, they are not based in this village. Some of them are artisanal miners from Penhalonga and others are family members who followed to stay with their husbands in that area,” she says. A Ministry of Health official, who was not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed to RFI that movements of mining communities are making it harder to get malaria under control. “Our interventions usually target immobile people. Artisanal miners are mobile and bring complications to the interventions,” said the official.
