Five of 13 districts declared cholera free

Efforts to prevent the further spread of the cholera outbreak seem to be yielding positive results as the Ministry of Health (MoH) has now declared five districts out of thirteen that were affected by the disease as cholera free.

The districts that are no longer on the list are Mulanje, Nsanje and Chikwawa in the Southern Region; Nkhata Bay in the Northern Region and Kasungu in the Central Region.

The development means that the total number of affected districts has now reduced to eight.

The remaining affected districts are Karonga which has the highest number of registered cases, Dowa, Lilongwe, Salima, Rumphi, Blantyre, Dedza and Likoma Island.

Statistics from MoH indicate that Karonga has a cumulative number of 303 registered cases followed by Lilongwe which has 201 cases, 5 in Dowa, 59 in Salima, 2 in Dedza, 1 in Blantyre and 10 in Rumphi.

Spokesperson for MoH Joshua Malango has expressed optimism that the remaining districts will soon be declared free from the outbreak and attributed the progress to the proper implementation and adherence of control measures.

He said: “Any district having cholera cases will be declared cholera free if it goes for two weeks or more without reporting any new cases. So yes, there is hope that other districts will soon be declared cholera free.”

Asked on whether there has been any impact on the first cholera vaccine currently being administered in Karonga which is the hardest hit by the outbreak, Malango said it was too early to say anything concrete.

“First round of the vaccination campaign has just been conducted last week. Second round is yet to happen so it is too soon to observe the impact of the vaccine in Karonga,” he explained.

The first consignment is targeting about 108 000 people from Karonga. The same vaccine was also administered in Nsanje, Chikwawa, Lake Chilwa and Dzaleka in Dowa.

The first case of cholera was reported in Karonga on November 24 last year, and to this date 12 lives have been lost.