World Health Organisation (WHO) has given Malawi 720 185 doses of oral cholera vaccine to boost the fight against the disease in four districts affected by the outbreak.
Ministry of Health spokesperson Adrian Chikumbe in an interview yesterday said the two-week vaccination campaign will target people in Chitipa, Karonga, Balaka and Machinga.
“It will not be a mass vaccination campaign. With WHO guidance, cholera vaccine is only administered to manage an existing outbreak in an area. It will, therefore, be given to affected populations in the affected districts,” he said in an interview yesterday.
Chikumbe said other interventions the ministry is implementing include continued cholera surveillance, risk communication and community engagement and distribution of cholera prevention supplies, including chlorine.
The current outbreak started in September last year and Malawi has to date registered 217 cases and 13 deaths.
Meanwhile, Malawi Health Equity Network executive director George Jobe said yesterday that the vaccines have come at a right time as this will help the country to contain the outbreak.
He appealed to communities where the doses will be administered to receive the vaccines positively.
“We should not have instances where healthcare workers are attacked because of misconceptions relating to vaccines,” said Jobe.
Meanwhile, the ministry is encouraging people to practise total hygiene at all times to prevent the spread of the disease. This includes water hygiene, food hygiene, personal hygiene as well as environmental hygiene.
In July 2024, Malawi declared the end of the country’s worst cholera outbreak which began in March 2022 with a case reported in Machinga and killed 1 772 people out of 59 376 cases registered in 29 health districts.
