Sunday 02/March/2025 – 02:54 PM
A new study indicates that climate change and conflicts lead to the return of cholera in Africa, while undermining progress towards eliminating the disease due to the lack of chronic financing, according to The Washington Post.
The return of cholera hinders progress in southeast and Africa
In 2024, more than 175,000 cases of cholera and 2,700 deaths were reported in the countries of South and East Africa, making it the most dangerous cholera in that region in the past decade, according to the United Nations summary issued this week.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the number of cases was higher in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, due to water scarcity, infrastructure problems, repeated floods and conflict.
So far this year, 14 countries have reported the outbreak of the active cholera epidemic, including a new outbreak in Angola and renewed the emergence of cases in Uganda and Zambia.
Improving the infrastructure of water, sewage and health hygiene is crucial to stopping cholera, which is often spread through polluted water and bad sewage practices, but the progress made in this critical issue was not sufficient, according to another study.
The return of cholera
According to the study, 29 out of 47 countries in the African Health Region have been classified as cholera and are the basic goals of eliminating the disease.
However, the cholera epidemic has recently spread beyond these traditional hot hotspots, which revealed the weaknesses of the unveiled countries as well.
The study indicates that the slow progress in the implementation of the regional framework for cholera prevention may explain the frequency of the disease outs into the affected and non -affected countries alike,
Ethiopia has made the largest progress of 76% in the implementation of the framework, while countries such as Mauritania and South Africa have been 19%, and some regions have witnessed improvements, such as hot points maps, monitoring, and the ability to respond fast.
But progress is still slow in vital areas such as water infrastructure, sewage and sustainable cholera financing, according to the study.
