Govt rolls out cholera case audit

The Ministry of Health has disclosed that since last Monday it has been conducting a data audit of all the cholera cases and deaths in the country.

The exercise seeks to ascertain the actual extent of the outbreak.

This was revealed on Saturday in Mzuzu during district environmental health officers First Quarterly Review meeting.

In his presentation, Ministry of Health epidemiology officer Wiseman Chimwaza said this is the first national audit for cholera and the results are expected to be released by the end of this month.

He said there is a feeling that there is over-reporting and under-reporting on both registered cases and deaths in some areas; hence, the need to do the exercise and ensure that the country has accurate data which would better inform interventions.

Said Chimwaza: “Already, there are issues which are coming out now in some districts where their cholera case reports have some pages missing. And in some hospitals or treatment centres they can have more cases yet few are reported accidentally.

“So, what we want is to have the actual figures on cases and deaths since data is important for effective interventions.”

Minister of Heath Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda said the audit is being supported by development partners including the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Unicef.

She said: “The audit is important as it will give us critical data to help us manage the outbreak.”

Unicef Malawi health specialist Ghanashyam Sethy pledged to continue supporting the fight against cholera to reduce the case fatality rate currently at 3.23 percent.

WHO recommends that the case fatality rate must be less than one percent.

Sethy said: “We supported medical equipment and trained health workers.

“Recently, we deployed 400 nurses in cholera treatment units and centres to improve the quality of care because the case fatality rate is very high; hence, needs to be reduced.”

Dehos President, Kondwani Mamba, asked for proper coordination between the ministries of Health and Water and Sanitation, warning the existing gap will compromise various interventions.

“If you go to the communities and ask who promotes sanitation and hygiene, you will see that it is a health surveillance assistant [HAS]. There is a well-connected system in the ministry of health to promote sanitation and hygiene.

“The ministry of water relies on the ministry of health for personnel and systems in implementing the projects. There is a need to ensure that these two ministries coordinate properly so that we don’t lose gains that are in both ministries,” said Mamba.

But Chiponda said her ministry focuses on the quality of water as opposed to the quantity and sanitation in general which was ten work for the ministry of water and sanitation.

“We look at the quality of water, while the ministry of water and sanitation looks at both quantity and quality. But in our case, the main focus is on the quality of water, is this good enough for our people whether it is from the water board, or borehole, or any source of water we have to check it.” she clarified.

Ntchisi Deho, James Mtonga, emerged as the overall winner and got a trophy and K300 000, while Rumphi Deho, John Mpoha, came second and collected a trophy and K200 000 while Deho for Balaka, Blessings Chitsime, came third and went home with trophy and K100 000.

Meanwhile, Ntchisi remains the only district that has not recorded any death from 37 cases.

Since the first case was reported on February 28 2022, the country had by Saturday, registered a cumulative confirmed 45 405 cholera cases with 1 456 deaths, the worst outbreak in decades.