The cholera epidemic that has been affecting various areas of the world for almost two years is getting worse, according to a report published by the World Health Organization. We are facing a “recrudescence” characterized “by the concurrence of several outbreaks, by the spread in areas free from cholera for decades and by alarming mortality rates”, says WHO. Currently, outbreaks are widespread in 24 countries. The south-eastern region of Africa is one of the areas that is most worrying at the moment, especially after the passage of cyclone Freddy which “further worsened the situation, causing a peak of cases in mid-March”, especially in Mozambique which, together to Malawi, is the most affected country in this phase. Almost 70,000 cases and 300 deaths were recorded in the two countries in the last year. The situation in Pakistan continues to be alarming: after last year’s floods, the risk of cholera has not yet returned and over 77,000 suspected cases have already been registered in the first three months of the year. He also criticizes the situation in Syria and even more in the autonomous region of North-East Syria (Rojava). Haiti is also under observation, where “the complex humanitarian and socio-political crisis continues to represent a major challenge in the surveillance and control of the cholera epidemic”. For the WHO, the level of global risk is classified as very high, in consideration of the difficulty “of responding to multiple and simultaneous epidemics” and “the global lack of resources, including the shortage of the oral vaccine against cholera, as well as the overload of medical and health personnel, dealing with multiple epidemics and other health emergencies simultaneously”.
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