Malawi boosts cholera fight
Malawi is among the first countries to receive rapid diagnostic test (RDT) kits for cholera under a global programme that will see over 1.2 million kits distributed to 14 countries at high risk of cholera.
The test kits, made available under the global cholera rapid diagnostic test procurement programme, which is a collaboration between Gavi-The Vaccine Alliance, World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and Find, arrived in the country last Friday.
In a joint statement, the organisations said other countries waiting to receive the kits in the coming weeks in the largest-ever global deployment include Ethiopia, Somalia, Syria and Zambia.
“This programme will improve the timeliness and accuracy of outbreak detection and response by boosting routine surveillance and testing capacity and helping rapidly identify probable cholera cases,” reads the statement in part.
Critically, it will also help countries monitor trends and build an evidence base for future preventive programmes, supporting the achievement of national cholera control and elimination targets.
Gavi-The Vaccine Alliance chief programme officer Aurélia Nguyen said the world is experiencing an unprecedented multi-year upsurge in cholera cases; hence, the initiative provides a critical boost in the fight against the disease.
“The rise in infections is being driven by continued gaps in access to safe water and sanitation, and our inability to reach vulnerable communities that are being put further at risk by climate change, conflict and displacement,” she said.
On the other hand, Unicef Supply Division director Leila Pakkala said routine use of diagnostics must be leveraged to better target vaccination efforts, which play a critical role in multisectoral cholera prevention and control programmes.
She said: “Despite cholera being preventable and easily treatable, children continue to suffer from this potentially fatal disease. This is why we are working with partners on all fronts and in novel ways to stem outbreaks.”
WHO executive director of Health Emergencies Programme Dr Michael Ryan said surveillance diagnostics help pinpoint hotspots with great precision by allowing partners to target cholera vaccines to exactly the time and place where the limited supply will save the most lives.
In 2021, the Gavi board approved $55 million (about K43.7 billion) in funding to support a diagnostics programme between 2022 and 2025 across diseases such as cholera to improve disease surveillance, outbreak detection and response and the design of preventive programmes.
Gavi then opened a cholera diagnostics application window in June 2023, which is still open, and so far 14 countries have submitted applications and have been approved by an Independent Review Committee of experts.
Cholera is an acute intestinal infection that spreads through food and water contaminated with faeces containing the bacterium vibrio cholerae. The rise in cholera cases is driven by continued gaps in access to safe water and sanitation, and failure to quickly detect outbreaks and limit their spread.
Malawi recorded 1 771 deaths from 59 106 cases between January 1 2022 and January 24 2024, leading the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) cholera fatalities despite ranking second in overall cases recorded in the past two years in eight countries.
But the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has the highest number of cases at 71 023, lies second on fatalities, having registered 766 deaths, 1 005 less than Malawi.
