WHO releases $16m to tackle cholera

On Sep 29, 2023

The World Health Organisation (WHO), has released $16m dollars from the WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies to tackle cholera.

WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, made this known during an online news conference, that the organisation was providing essential supplies and coordinating on the ground response with partners to support countries to detect, prevent and treat cholera, and informing people on how to protect themselves.

“To support this work, we have appealed for 160 million dollars, and we have released more than 16 million dollars from the WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies.

“But the real solution to cholera lies in ensuring everyone has access to safe water and sanitation, which is an internationally recognized human right,” he said.

According to him, in the previous week, WHO published new data showing that cases reported in 2022 were more than double those in 2021.
He said that the preliminary data for 2023 suggested it was more likely to be worse.

“So far, 28 countries have reported cases in 2023 compared with 16 during the same period in 2022.

“The countries with the most concerning outbreaks right now are Ethiopia, Haiti, Iraq and Sudan.

“Significant progress has been made in countries in Southern Africa, including Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, but these countries remain at risk as the rainy season approaches,” Ghebreyesus said.

He said, the worst affected countries and communities are poor, without access to safe drinking water or toilets.

They also face shortages of oral cholera vaccine and other supplies, as well as overstretched health workers, who are dealing with multiple disease outbreaks and other health emergencies.

Ghebreyesus said that as the northern hemisphere winter approaches, the organisation would continue to see concerning trends on COVID-19.

He said among the relatively few countries that report them, both hospitalisations and ICU admissions have increased in the past 28 days, particularly in the Americas and Europe.

Meanwhile, vaccination levels among the most at-risk groups remained worryingly low.

“Two-thirds of the world’s population has received a complete primary series, but only one-third has received an additional, or booster”dose.

“COVID-19 may no longer be the acute crisis it was two years ago, but that does not mean we can ignore it,” he added.

According to him, countries have invested so much into building their systems to respond to COVID-19.

He urged countries to sustain those systems, to ensure people can be protected, tested and treated for COVID-19 and other infectious threats.

“That means sustaining systems for collaborative surveillance, community protection, safe and scalable care, access to countermeasures and coordination.”