Mozambique to start cholera vaccinations

Seven clinics set up and two more will be ready soon

Mozambique will start a cholera vaccination campaign next week in areas ravaged by Cyclone Idai, the World Health Organisation says, after five confirmed cases were detected.

Mozambique will start a cholera vaccination campaign next week in areas ravaged by Cyclone Idai, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says, after five confirmed cases were detected.

Thousands of people were trapped for more than a week in submerged villages, without access to clean water, after cyclone Idai smashed into the Mozambican port city of Beira on March 14, causing catastrophic flooding and killing more than 700 people across three countries in southeast Africa.

With tens of thousands of displaced people moved to makeshift camps, relief efforts have increasingly focused on containing outbreaks of waterborne and infectious diseases.

David Wightwick, a senior member of the WHO’s response team in Beira, told reporters that seven clinics had been set up in Mozambique to treat cholera patients and that two more would be ready soon.

“We have 900,000 doses of oral cholera vaccines which are coming in on Monday and we will start a vaccination campaign as soon as possible next week,” Wightwick said.

Cholera is endemic to Mozambique, which has had regular outbreaks over the past five years. About 2,000 people were infected in the last outbreak, which ended in February 2018, according to the WHO.

But the scale of the damage to Beira’s water and sanitation infrastructure, coupled with its dense population, have raised fears that another epidemic would be difficult to put down.

Wightwick could not confirm whether there had yet been any deaths from cholera.

A reporter saw the body of a dead child being brought out of an emergency clinic in Beira on Wednesday. The child had suffered acute diarrhoea, which can be a symptom of cholera.

In Malawi, which was badly hit by flooding and heavy rains in the lead-up to Cyclone Idai, the government said arable and livestock farming had been badly affected and irrigation infrastructure had been damaged.

Agriculture ministry spokesperson Hamilton Chimala said about 420,000 tons of maize had been lost, representing about 12% of the country’s forecast output of 3.3-million tons in the 2018/2019 season.

Malawi is regularly hit by food shortages, so the damage to the country’s staple grain is a cause for concern.

Zimbabwe’s local government minister, July Moyo, said on Wednesday the government would spend another $18m to deal with the aftermath of the cyclone.

As of Wednesday, 713 people in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi had died in the tropical storm and flooding.

/AFP On land: An aid worker writes down the names of a woman and a child after they arrived on a fishing vessel in Beira. Members of the Indian navy and aid workers have set up a triage and medical centre in the city to help people who have been displaced by Cyclone Idai.