Purification halts cholera

Many of the communities near our operations in Zambia are vulnerable to waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery. First Quantum is committed to addressing the causes of infection.

WASHE program
Our commitment to community health in Zambia includes our water, sanitation and hygiene education (“WASHE”) program – a long-term program that aims to prevent the root causes of a number of poor outcomes including cholera, typhoid and malnutrition. Our network of peer educators provide education and demonstrations on personal hygiene such as hand washing, and household hygiene such as boiling or chlorinating water and safe water storage.

Working on collaboration
We work in collaboration with the Council and Government Health District teams to inspect and ensure toilets and washing facilities are available and cleaned, and to teach students about cholera prevention. In any given year, we distribute around 48,000 bottles of chlorine for water purification and 4,000 bags of lime to decontaminate latrines. In 2017, when outbreak struck, we partnered with the Zambian Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit and the Ministry of Health and increased our education efforts and provision of water purification supplies.

Infrastructure to tackle the root cause
Hygiene behavior change is only part of the story. Ultimately, cholera prevention depends on access to safe water. Which is why we run on-going infrastructure projects to improve stormwater management, provide community boreholes and monitor bore water quality to complement government efforts to address the challenge of access to clean, safe drinking water.