Zambia Cholera Outbreak: 10,000 Infected, Over 400 Dead; Football Stadium Turned Into Treatment Facility

A major cholera outbreak in Zambia has killed over 400 people and infected more than 10,000, leading to the closure of schools across the country and forcing the authorities to covert a large football stadium in the capital city into a treatment facility.

The Zambian government has mobilised its national disaster management agency and is launching a mass vaccination program, The Associated Press reported. Cholera is an acute diarrhea infection caused by a bacteria that is typically spread via contaminated food or water. The outbreak in Zambia began in October and 412 people have died and 10,413 cases have been recorded, according to the latest count release on Wednesday.

400 cases a day

The Zambian Health Ministry says cholera has been detected in nearly half of the country’s districts and nine out of 10 provinces, and the nation of about 20 million people has been recording more than 400 cases a day. “This outbreak continues to pose a threat to the health security of the nation,” Health Minister Sylvia Masebo said, outlining it was a nationwide problem.

The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, called the fatality rate of around 4% in the three-month outbreak “a devastatingly high number.” When treated, cholera typically has a death rate of less than 1%. There have been recent cholera outbreaks in other southern African nations including Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. More than 200,000 cases and over 3,000 deaths have been reported in southern Africa since the start of 2023, UNICEF said.

Malawi had its worst cholera outbreak in decades in 2023. Last year, the World Health Organisation reported that about 30 countries globally, also including Nigeria and Uganda in Africa, suffered serious outbreaks in the last few years. Cholera barely affects countries in the developed world and can be easily treated but can be quickly fatal if not treated. More than half — 229 — of the victims in the Zambian outbreak died before being admitted to a health facility, the public health institute said.

Several outbreaks since 1970s

Zambia has had several major cholera outbreaks since the 1970s but this one is the worst for 20 years in terms of the caseload, according to Dr. Mazyanga Mazaba, the director of Public Health Policy and communication at the public health institute. WHO said last year that while poverty and conflict remain the main drivers for cholera, climate change has contributed to the disease’s upsurge in many places across the globe since 2021 by making storms wetter and more frequent.

The Zambian government announced in early January that schools, which were meant to open for the year on Jan. 8, will only open on Jan. 29. Zambia’s Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit was mobilised and it was delivering large water tanks and trucking in clean water to some neighbourhoods daily. Granulated chlorine to treat water was also being provided, it said.

The majority of cases are in the capital, Lusaka, where a 60,000-seat national soccer stadium has been converted into a treatment center and is dealing with around 500 patients at any one time, the health minister said. She said Zambia had received around 1.4 million doses of the oral cholera vaccine from the WHO and expected more than 200,000 more to arrive soon.

(With agency inputs)

Original news source