Talk:2008 Zimbabwean cholera outbreak

Link to GA review (template link does not work due to move of article)

Why Should People Care?

I'm going to play devil's advocate; Why should I and other people care about this? (This comment was written by FDD19 [ Talk ] on December 6, 2008 at 16:46 GMT)

This is a global crisis but no one seems to realise it. The cholera is spreading into neighbouring countries infecting people of those states and putting a strain on their health services. This means that the economies of those nations is damaged and things spiral downwards forcing people to leave therefore causing refugees. Consequently, these refugess move to third world countries and put a strain on their services which causes other problems. Moreover, Zimbabwe was a huge exporter of food. Now, it doesn't export as much and relies on imports, Zimbabwe is helping to increase the world food crisis and therefore make food prices increase which means that inflation rises and the values of stocks plummet which brings about the credit crunch. While Zimbabwe isn't the sole cause of the credit crunch it obviously has helped. The world is all linked in - there is no such thing as being independant and if every country can provide more food than it needs itself we will all feel the benefits. So resolving Zimbabwe is one less problem country off the world's hands and less time and resources will be wasted - something to all our advantage.... Mangwanani ^(talk) 16:12, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde (John Donne) - people are dying, enough said.Babakathy (talk) 17:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, but by the first comment made, I took the writer to be the sort of person who didn't care about such things. Mangwanani ^(talk) 17:28, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Quite. Babakathy (talk) 17:50, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I guess a social concience isn't a good enough reason?210.215.75.3 (talk) 05:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

I see the article has been vandalised quite a bit today. If this childish vandalism keeps on happening, I think there's a good case for taking measures to hinder any destructive activity e.g. semi-protection. - Nabokov (talk) 15:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

It's just one IP address doing it, and they got several warnings. I'd prefer if we can avoid semi-protection as there are some anon. editors making useful contributions. Babakathy (talk) 16:08, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:2008 Zimbabwean cholera outbreak/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Unfortunately, I must quick-fail this article. GA nominations should be quick-failed if they "specifically concerns a rapidly unfolding current event with a definite endpoint". Please re-nominate the article after the outbreak has concluded. Thank you. Terrakyte (talk) 21:52, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Clear enough.Babakathy (talk) 07:32, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Cleaning

This article will have serious potential for GA and FA as long as things are maintained, ie make sure all web references have title, publisher and accessdate sections filled in as you go along - makes less work when reviews come along. Also keep dates etc to wiki format and don't type dashes - such they need to be – (small letters) to produce – Just tips to maintain as one goes along to make less work in the end... Mangwanani ^(talk) 20:48, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Now that the epidemic has subsided, it would be a good time to appraise the long-term state of this article. At present it still closely resembles a newspaper article or news review. To be more like an encyclopedia article we can prune much of the material that is not actually what the cholera outbreak was about. Enormous space has been allocated to public statements that, while of interest at the time, are in fact quite irrelevant to the actual subject. Numerous quotations are not needed (because they distract the reader from the issues) except in a short section to show that political figures attempted to derive some gain from the tragedy (keeping the references). Some other sections can be treated in the same way. Comments?--Sinazita (talk) 13:13, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Time to change article name?

We have now entered 2009, and this cholera outbreak is in no way over. Should we change the name to "2008–2009 Zimbabwean cholera outbreak"? --Eivind (t) 14:08, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, unless it is the convention to name epidemics by when they start - does anyone know? Babakathy (talk) 14:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Not as I know of, and after looking at other articles on epidemics, I can't see that we have any convention (at least not carried out). --Eivind (t) 14:39, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, i chose to be bold and just do it ... (: --Eivind (t) 15:40, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:World Vision.png

The image File:World Vision.png is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --06:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Babakathy (talk) 05:57, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

B class assessment

I think that this article has a good chance at GA status when the outbreak ends. A few small changes I'd suggest:

• All of the refs that are only used in the Image:Zimcholeracases2.png caption can be put into a single citation. It's not necessary to give a separate ref number to each and every webpage, and this will make the caption more readable.
• There are a small number simple typos (for example, "expectedn" under #Impact) and grammar errors (for example, "internationally–funded emergency clinics" should not be hyphenated).
• You've used WP:DASHes in a few places that should actually have WP:HYPHENs. (GA shouldn't care; FA will.)
• The short blockquote in #Impact should probably not be a blockquote (which is generally reserved for quotations of more than four lines or more than one paragraph); instead, it should be inline.
• Under #Spread, "Dr." Anthony Turton should probably be just plain Anthony Turton; Wikipedia doesn't usually bother with academic degrees. However, his title (employment or specialty) might be relevant.

In terms possible expansion, if there's good information about what needs to be done to stop this specific epidemic -- boil water? replace old sewage pipes? -- then that might be interesting. I assume that this information would come largely from the various entities that are involved in the response. In other words, if they had US$17.5 million, what would they do with it?

Hope this helps, WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 28 January 2009 (UTC) (who is not watching this page)

What about bringing back the colonial powers? I'm sure they could reconstruct the whole country in a few years. M99 87.59.102.169 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:33, 22 June 2009 (UTC).

Related: Cholera outbreak in Kenya

Not that this is deriving from the Zimbabwean outbreak which has mostly hit the rest of Southern Africa, but a separate outbreak is also going on in Kenya since late 2008, primarily concentrated in Eastern, Northeastern, Nyanza and Western. Over 20 dead and over 600 infected: [1] [2]. --Toussaint (talk) 05:29, 20 March 2009 (UTC)