By Elezo Libanda
Katima Mulilo, Aug. 6 – While COVID 19 infections have gone down transforming the killer from a pandemic to an endemic, people still suffer the after-effects of the pandemic.
The disease had led to a devastating loss of human life worldwide and presented an unprecedented challenge to public health, good systems and the world of work.
The economic and social disruptions caused by the pandemic were devastating, and a number of enterprises face an essential threat.
More than 50 percent of the workforce are at risk of losing their livelihoods, informal economy workers are particularly vulnerable as the majority lack social protection and access to productive assets, without the means to earn an income, many are unable to feed themselves and their families, for most no income, means no food or best less food and less nutritious food.
The pandemic has affected the entire food system and has laid bare its fragility. Border closures, trade restrictions and confinement measures have been preventing farmers in the Zambezi from accessing markets and buying inputs as most are sourced from foreign countries.
As breadwinners lost jobs, others fell sick, others even died, the food security and nutrition of women and men are under threat.
A while ago ADRA, a department in the Seventh Adventist church came to the aid of 110 households in the Zambezi, the organisation through its development partners gave food parcels to stateless people in the Zambezi as many people lost their livelihoods during the pandemic, their only hope is for government to help them.
