Malawi declared cholera-free
Ministry of Health has declared the end of a two-year cholera outbreak in Malawi after the country completed four weeks without registering any laboratory confirmed cases of the disease caused by poor water and sanitation hygiene.
In a statement dated July 12 2024, the ministry’s Principal Secretary Samson Mndolo said the declaration is effective July 10 2024 and is in line with World Health Organisation (WHO) alert and response systems for public health threats.
Reads the statement: “The country has for the past four weeks not registered any confirmed case of cholera from identified suspected cases. The situation means that all transmission chains of the disease have been fully interrupted.”
Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 and Cholera co-chairperson Wilfred Chalamira Nkhoma in an interview said the milestone was achieved due to interventions in the areas of community awareness, case identification, timely case management and oral cholera vaccination.
“New occurrences are possible, and we should be on the lookout for them and deal with them as rapidly as they emerge,” he said.
On his part, Ministry of Water and Sanitation Principal Secretary Elias Chimulambe said his ministry will continue to ensure that all cholera hotspots in low-income areas have safe water at affordable tariffs.
He further said the ministry is also working with partners to mobilise adequate water, sanitation and hygiene supplies in preparation for the cholera season which usually runs from October to February.
But Kamuzu University of Health Sciences professor of public health and epidemiology Adamson Muula said yesterday there have not been many notable changes in access to potable water for many citizens and it would not be surprising if another outbreak emerges.
He said: “We continue to see people using the same unsafe water sources. Public toilets in urban centres are largely inaccessible. But this is the time to gird up and much more meaningfully than just through rhetoric.”
Malawi declared an outbreak of cholera on March 3 2022 and the country registered 59 376 cases and 1 772 deaths.
In December 2022, President Lazarus Chakwera declared a national public health emergency which saw intensified implementation of preventive and control interventions.
This resulted in reduced cases and the disease was declared as no longer a public health emergency on August 5 2023.
