Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Malawi is facing its history’s deadliest outbreak of cholera, which has so far killed at least 1,210 people, according to a World Health Organization statement on Thursday. It added that several other African nations report outbreaks while vaccines remain scarce.
Since March 2022, a total of nearly 37,000 cases have been reported as the African nation is trying to contain its worst cholera outbreak on record.
Confirmed cases have also been reported in Malawi’s neighbor Mozambique.
Regarding the risk of the outbreak’s spread, the WHO stated that the disease’s spread inside Malawi and to other countries across its borders is “very high”.
It further said that in Malawi’s 27 out of 29 districts, active transmission of cholera is being witnessed. Also, the number of cases last month had increased by a whopping 143 percent compared to the case count of December 2022.
Issuing a warning, WHO said that the “sharp increase of cases” witnessed last month has led to fears that without strong interventions, the spread of the disease will “continue to worsen”.
In the whole of last year, 80,000 cases have been recorded across the African continent.
