Cholera cases on the decline
Ministry of Health daily cholera updates show that cases are on the decline since March 1 2023 with the country recording an average of six cholera deaths against the previous week’s 13.
The updates also indicate that the cases have dropped from an average of 433 per day last week to about 349 per day this week.
In separate interviews, epidemiologists Dr. Gama Bandawe and Dr. Bridget Malewezi yesterday attributed the decline to several factors, including concerted efforts from both the public and private sectors to improve the cholera situation in the country.
Bandawe, who is head of biological sciences at Malawi University of Science and Technology, observed that people seem to have changed their behaviour because they are now aware of the severity of the disease and the hard work of healthcare workers and other people as well as organisations involved in the cholera response.
He said: “The data shows that the number of cases had peaked and is coming down. What is important is that we need to intensify the effort that we are putting now. If we relax or are not careful, the cases can easily shoot up again because many of the factors that contribute to the rising cases are still in place.
“As long as there are places where people are still vulnerable and the conditions are there to rise, we are all still at risk.”
Malewezi, on the other hand, noted that the hiring of additional healthcare worke r s , i n c l u d i n g clinicians and nurses has helped to improve the management of cholera cases in the country ’s treatment units.
She observed that initially, most healthcare workers managing cholera cases in treatment units were less skilled such as health surveillance assistants.
Said Malewezi: “So, now if you have better skilled clinicians, more staff, they can pick up on cases. I think these are some of the elements that are contributing to better case management.
“But there is still work to be done, even as we are seeing these cases coming down. There is need to be addressing whatever residual issues have led to these cases being so high. We need to improve on sanitation and hygiene, messaging and practices of people such as behaviour change are things that need to be promoted throughout the rest of the year.”
Nkhata Bay used to be the worst hit by cholera, but has contained it after recording its last case on February 17.
In an interview, Nkhata Bay district environmental health officer Matthews Kalaya said they employed a number of interventions such as investigating sources of cholera and why it was spreading fast in the district.
He said his of f ice discovered that some fishers were using the lake as a toilet and while some communities were drinking water from the same lake.
Kalaya said: “So, we sensitised communities to construct and start using pit latrines, and also stop using water from the lake.
“We further discovered that some communities were hiding cholera deaths, a situation which contributed to the fast spread of the outbreak. So we started strictly monitoring burials of cholera deaths and restricting number of guardians in treatment centres.”
As of Tuesday, the country had recorded 51 855 cases with 1 616 deaths since the first cholera case was registered in Machinga in March 2022.
