Health ministers from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) have declined a proposal to designate cholera as a public health emergency across the region.
Sylvia Masebo, the Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) board chairperson, emphasized that individual countries should make independent decisions regarding the classification of the cholera outbreak as a health emergency.
Addressing the CDC extraordinary session in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Ms. Masebo, also Zambia’s health minister, urged member states to implement proactive measures to contain the current outbreak, which has affected approximately 15 Sadc member states.
Zambia is grappling with one of the worst cholera outbreaks in decades, witnessing nearly 600 deaths and over 16,000 reported cases since last October. Cholera outbreaks have occurred in Zambia around 30 times since 1977, with the current one being the most severe since 2017, according to WaterAid.
Additionally, Zimbabwe and Malawi have also been impacted by the ongoing cholera outbreak.
Sadc leaders are scheduled to convene a virtual summit on Friday to evaluate the readiness and responses to the cholera outbreaks across the region.
