HARARE (Reuters): Zimbabwe on Monday launched a cholera vaccination campaign to immunise over 2 million people against the waterborne disease, amid an outbreak that has killed hundreds since early last year.
Cholera had killed 452 people and infected a total of 20,446 in the southern African country as of Jan 24, since the outbreak started in February 2023, according to health ministry statistics. About half of the cases have involved children.
Zimbabwe will receive a total of 2.3 million vaccine doses from UNICEF and the World Health Organisation to be deployed to 29 of the hardest-hit districts. More than 892,000 doses have already been dispatched, the health ministry said.
The cholera vaccine roll-out campaign was launched in Kuwadzana, a township about 15 km (9 miles) from central Harare.
Read more: Mother and son survive Zambia’s deadly cholera outbreak
Health workers administered the first vaccines to schoolchildren amid calls for residents to participate. They have also started going door-to-door offering vaccines to households.
Cholera is spread by contaminated food or water and often occurs in crowded urban areas with poor sanitation facilities.
The campaign uses the Euvichol-Plus vaccine, produced by EuBiologics, which is administered orally and protects against cholera infections for at least six months.
In November, the Zimbabwean government moved to restrict public gatherings and food vending and monitor burials in areas affected by cholera after cases spiked.
“The introduction of the cholera vaccine is another tool to prevent the further spread of the disease,” the health ministry said.
IT’S MAKING A WORLDWIDE COMEBACK
In May last year, the UN health experts warned that cholera, a 19th-century disease, may be making a ‘devastating’ comeback after years of decline.
In a new alert, the World Health Organization (WHO), a Geneva-based UN agency, and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that more countries now face outbreaks, increasing numbers of cases are being reported and the outcome for patients is worse than 10 years ago.
Echoing the bleak outlook, WHO data indicates that by May last year, 15 countries had reported cases, but by mid-May this year “we already have 24 countries reporting and we anticipate more with the seasonal shift in cholera cases,” said Henry Gray, WHO’s Incident Manager for the global cholera response.
“Despite advances in the control of the disease made in the previous decades we risk going backwards.”
The UN health agency estimates that one billion people in 43 countries are at risk of cholera with children under five particularly vulnerable. Cholera’s extraordinarily high mortality ratio is also alarming. Malawi and Nigeria registered case fatality rates as high as three per cent this year, well above the acceptable one per cent.
South-eastern Africa is particularly badly affected, with infections spreading in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The development follows the destructive passage of Cyclone Freddy in February and March this year, leaving 800,000 people in Malawi and Mozambique internally displaced and disrupting healthcare.
A deadly combination of climate change, underinvestment in water, sanitation and hygiene services – and in some cases armed conflict – has led to the spread of the disease, agreed the two UN agencies.
