WHO Reports 71 Percent Rise in Cholera Deaths
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There were 45 countries with reported cholera cases in 2023, up markedly from 35 countries with cases in 2021.
The global burden of the disease has shifted from the Middle East and Asia to Africa, where there was a 125 percent increase in cases in 2023 compared with the previous year.
Cholera’s spread in southern Africa has been propelled by catastrophic weather events, including both floods and droughts.
When people lack access to water, they often crowd around a few sources, which, if they become polluted, can quickly sicken thousands.
Zambia and Malawi both mounted strong responses to cholera outbreaks, Dr. Barboza said, but their health systems were overwhelmed.
In the Zambian capital, Lusaka, the government had to set up a cholera treatment center in a stadium.
In Sudan, where more than nine million people have been displaced by a brutal civil war, people are packed into camps with minimal sanitation infrastructure.
Nevertheless, health workers managed to bring a cholera outbreak under control last year, said Dr. Bashir Hamid, the health and nutrition director for Save the Children in Sudan.
But now, he said, the disease is back, with more than 5,600 cases reported since mid-August.
“We are seeing children who are already badly weakened by malnutrition, and they have no defense against cholera,” Dr. Hamid remarked.
In 2023, very large outbreaks, defined as more than 10,000 suspected or confirmed cases, were reported by nine countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Malawi, Mozambique, Somalia and Zimbabwe.
This was more than double the number of such outbreaks reported annually from 2019 to 2021, the WHO found, as quoted from NYtimes.
The primary reason for last year’s higher death rate was an increase in what the WHO calls “community deaths”: people who died of cholera without receiving any care in a health center.
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