African leaders call for urgent action against cholera

By Phephile Motau

Ministers for Health, Water and Sanitation in 11 African countries have called for urgent action to address cholera epidemics and other waterborne diseases.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the recent outbreak which has over 130 000 cases and 3052 deaths, could lead to a higher number of cases recorded than that of 2021 ‒ the worst year for cholera in Africa in nearly a decade. The region is also witnessing cholera outbreaks in areas not usually affected by the disease.

The organisation said at a high-level ministerial meeting on “Cholera epidemics and Climate-related public health emergencies” in Lilongwe on March 9 and 10, the ministers agreed to “undertake urgent actions to facilitate cooperation and collaboration amongst our Member States for cholera, polio and climate-related public health emergency preparedness, readiness and response.”

Read More: Cholera outbreaks threaten 1 billion lives

The meeting was organized by the Government of Malawi with support from WHO’s Regional Office for Africa, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and UNICEF.

Current cholera epidemics are occurring in the context of extreme climatic events, such as severe drought in the greater Horn of Africa, and seasonal rains and tropical storms in southern Africa, which exacerbate the risk of propagation of waterborne diseases.

A total of 13 countries in the WHO African region are currently faced with a cholera outbreak, with a continued risk of cross-border infection. The organisation said the persistence of cholera is a manifestation of gaps in water and sanitation infrastructures and services, poor hygiene, shortcomings in surveillance, health systems and workforce to facilitate early detection for a prompt outbreak response, as well as insufficient political commitment to secure the necessary resources to impact changes.

Read More: Over E5m spent on the protection of wetlands

Five southern African countries – all of them responding to a cholera outbreak invested tremendous efforts over the last year to vaccinate more than 33 million children against wild poliovirus type 1, after Malawi confirmed its first case in 30 years in February 2022.

It was reported that the ministers at the meeting called for the establishment of the Africa Elimination of Cholera Epidemics Coordination Task Force (AECECT), hosted at the African Union secretariat in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, under the leadership of the Member States with support from the Africa CDC, WHO, UNICEF, GTFCC and other relevant partners to support the cooperation and collaboration on Cholera elimination efforts while maintaining full coherence with the Ending Cholera a Global Roadmap to 2030.