Cholera: Over 1.2 Million Tests Distributed to 14 Countries
By Willy Ngumbi
Despite the availability of simple, effective, and affordable treatment, Cholera, with high case fatality rates has been surging globally since 2021.
As such, more than 1.2 million cholera rapid diagnostic tests will be shipped to 14 countries in the largest-ever global deployment, with the first shipment landing in Malawi.
These countries include Ethiopia, Somalia, Syria, Zambia, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
“We are experiencing an unprecedented multi-year upsurge in cholera cases worldwide, and today’s announcement 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,” said Aurélia Nguyen, Chief Programme Officer at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
“Routine use of diagnostics will bolster cholera surveillance in impacted countries, and must be leveraged to better target vaccination efforts, which play a critical role in multisectoral cholera prevention and control programmes.”
The global cholera diagnostics programme is funded and coordinated by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), with procurement and delivery to countries led by UNICEF, and undertaken in collaboration with the Global Task Force on Cholera Control (GTFCC), and the World Health Organization (WHO).
“It’s a tragedy that cholera, a preventable and treatable disease continues to afflict and kill today. We need urgent action on all fronts, including commitment by countries to clean water, sanitation and hygiene,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, Executive Director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme.
“WHO welcomes the deployment of these rapid cholera tests. They will equip health workers with the critical and timely data needed to stop outbreaks early and direct efforts to better prevent and treat cholera.”
Cholera is a severe intestinal infection that spreads through food and water contaminated with faeces containing the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The rise in cholera is driven by continued gaps in access to safe water and sanitation, and failure to quickly detect outbreaks and limit their spread. The communities impacted often do not have access to basic health services, a situation made worse by climate-related factors, conflict and population displacement.
Dr. Sergio Carmona, Acting CEO and Chief Medical Officer at FIND says that cholera is now spreading to areas that have been free from the disease for many years, demanding a swift, multifaceted strategy to direct limited resources to critical areas and save lives. Accurate and high-quality testing and surveillance measures are vital to spot the disease where it is emerging, confirm cholera cases amidst other diarrheal illnesses, and evaluate the success of preventative measures such as vaccines.
To be effective, Carmona notes, these multisectoral strategies for the control of cholera must be guided by timely and reliable cholera surveillance data. Surveillance not only supports the early detection of and quick response to an outbreak, but also plays a central role in providing stakeholders in other cholera prevention and control pillars with the data they need to target, design, implement, and evaluate interventions.