WHO reports continued high threats of cholera worldwide as 2024 commences

Cholera still poses a high risk danger to people worldwide as the new year begins, according to the latest report released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday.

The WHO assessed the risk of cholera at the global level as very high and the event remains classified as a grade 3 emergency.

According to the report, there were 40,900 cases and 775 deaths reported in January alone from 17 countries across four regions including the African Region, the Eastern Mediterranean Region, the Region of the Americas, and the South-East Asia Region.

Zambia and Zimbabwe have experienced the highest surges, underscoring the ongoing challenge of controlling cholera and the importance of sustained public health efforts. Health experts said cholera typically kills 1 percent of people it infects, but the death rate in Zambia, one of the world's poorest countries, has reached 3.6 percent.

The WHO said a total of over 708,200 cases of cholera or acute watery diarrhea (AWD) and more than 4,300 deaths were reported worldwide in 2023 while there were 472,697 cases and 2,349 deaths in 2021, showing a concerning escalation in global cases and deaths associated with cholera.

The report also said the response to cholera globally is affected by a critical shortage of Oral Cholera Vaccines (OCV). From January 2023 to January 2024, urgent requests for OCV surged, with 76 million OCV doses requested by 14 countries while only 38 million doses were available during that time period.