About 11 persons have died following a cholera outbreak in Ndibokote village of Ezza Inyimagu, Izzi Local Council of Ebonyi State. Meanwhile, African countries and health partners have pledged up to $314 million to a new monkey pox (mpox) fund, the Head, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Jean Kaseya, announced yesterday.
Among the cholera victims is a nursing mother, who left behind a nine-month-old baby. The Commissioner for Health, Moses Ekuma, confirmed this in a statement by the ministry’s spokesman, Lucy Anyim.
Apart from the deceased, about 20 persons affected by the outbreak are reportedly responding to treatment, as efforts have been made to put the disease under control.
Noting that Governor Francis Nwifuru approved the procurement of medical commodities to curtail the outbreak the commissioner added that three treatment centres, including the Iziogo Health Centre, Sudan Mission Onuenyim and Ndibokote village had been established in the area.
Open defecation and poor hygiene have been attributed to the outbreak as most communities got drinking water from streams. Such people were advised to take precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the disease.
Kaseya said $129 million would come from the pandemic fund to support 10 countries impacted by mpox, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.
“Our team is working with the pandemic fund team to allocate these resources in the 10 countries approved for support,” he said at a virtual news conference.
The funding, created at a meeting of African heads of state earlier this week, is expected to bolster country and regional capacity in critical areas, including disease surveillance, diagnostics, laboratory networks and health workforce while addressing the immediate challenges posed by mpox.
The continental preparedness and response plan for Africa has a budget of about $600 million. Kaseya said the United States also committed to provide $500 million to support the continental response plan and one million vaccine doses.
According to him, Africa has secured 4.4 million vaccine doses against 10 million doses needed to control the disease. A total of 2,910 new cases of mpox and 16 new deaths, mostly in central and eastern Africa, were recorded the last week, according to the latest data from Africa CDC.
More than 32,000 confirmed cases have been recorded on the continent with 840 deaths this year. Compared to the same period last year, Kaseya said there had been more than a 194 per cent increase in cases in 15 African countries.
Mpox cases are steadily increasing across affected countries, Kaseya said, citing contact tracing and low testing capacity among the challenges. The testing rate on the continent stands at 49.5 per cent, whereby many cases cannot be confirmed.
Kaseya said, this week, Africa CDC would deliver available vaccines from the European Union (EU) to some affected countries like Rwanda, Central African Republic (CAR), South Africa, Burundi and Cameroon. DRC, the most affected country in the region, will begin vaccinations in the first week of October.
“Our objective is to stop this outbreak in the next six months and we need full support from member states and our partners,” he said.