The world is suffering an unprecedented number of cholera outbreaks in countries affected by climate disasters and other crises, while vaccines to prevent this disease have become “extremely scarce,” the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Wednesday.
In 2022 “31 countries have reported outbreaks, more widespread and deadly than normal and the figure is 50% more than in previous years,” the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned at a press conference.
Haiti, Syria and Malawi are among the most affected countries, stressed Tedros, who warned that these simultaneous outbreaks have generated a shortage of vaccines that has led the international immunization coordination mechanism to take the measure of reducing the doses administered to each patient. (two to one).
“Despite this unprecedented measure, stocks remain very low and production is at maximum capacity,” lamented Tedros, who asked countries that have recently suffered outbreaks to increase their prevention of possible new infections.