AS THE CHOLERA FIGHT CONTINUES.

By ILYANA Sithole

Zimbabwe started the fight against Cholera on 12 February 2023, yesterday marked exactly a year since the onset of the epidemic.

As the number of cases continue to rise, the health sector continues to try their best in keeping the epidemic under control including the rollout of Oral Cholera Vaccination (OCV).

Health authorities, including the World Health Organization are working hand in glove, creating awareness and response programmes in a bid to curb the spread of cholera by educating, informing and reassuring the public through various campaigns that the battle has not been lost.

On the 29th of January 2024, the Ministry of Health and Child Care launched the Cholera Vaccination Campaign which targeted districts that were viewed as hotspots, giving vaccines to everyone above the age of one.

At a press briefing held on Monday the Health Ministry Deputy Cholera Incident Manager Stephen Karim said, “unfortunately we had deaths along the way, so far we have had 71 confirmed culture positive deaths as well as 454 suspected cholera deaths”, looking at the positive side he said, “on a positive note our fatality rate has gone down from 2.2% to 1.9% which reflects on improvement in case management”.

Worldwide there are limited doses, thus, people are currently being given a single dose while the state waits for more vaccines. He says, “in terms of supply of the OVC, there is a shortage, it is not a vaccine that is plentiful so there is rationalisation happening, you might be aware that most countries in SADC are hit by cholera so demand is high, supply is not matching demand. So we are doing one dose because of inadequate supplies on the global market” and “one of the contributing factors is the nature in which the vaccines are coming, they are coming in batches”.

Although the vaccination is not compulsory, the Ministry of Health and Child Care still advised that everyone should get it as it clearly sounds when he says, “if you get a full complement of two shots, protection goes up to three years so this gives us space to organize other drivers of cholera”.

As the day ended yesterday a total of 24117 cumulative suspected cases, 2512 cumulative culture confirmed, 23368 cumulative recovered cases, 71  cumulative culture deaths and 455 cumulative suspected deaths had been recorded.