The cholera outbreak in Cameroon has escalated in recent weeks with a more than 3.5-fold increase between weeks 10 and 12 (ending 27 March 2022) and with further geographical spread to more regions, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Cameroon began experiencing increasing reports of cholera since 2021 and declared an outbreak in the last week of October 2021.

In the past five months, at total of 3,407 cases and 83 deaths (CFR 2.4%) have been reported. Currently, there are five regions with active outbreaks including Centre, Littoral, North, South, and South-West.

“Cholera has been moving from one district to the next, from maritime districts to the mainland districts,” says Dr Filbert Eko Eko, Public Health Delegate for South-West Region.

“The South West Region is one of the border regions to Nigeria and it’s also facing a humanitarian crises. Trans-border movement is so frequent, and it is difficult to control the movement of people between Nigeria and Cameroon. For this reason, it is also difficult to check their health status. If we could control the trans-border movement, it would be easier for us,” Dr Eko Eko says.

Poor healthcare seeking remains a challenge as many people prefer to get treatment from traditional healers due to the lack of transportation.

Dr Eko Eko says, “The cholera epidemic usually starts during the dry season, which is when there are problems with water. We need to provide potable water to the community. We also need to check their sanitary conditions, especially fecal disposal, while also ensuring that the water they drink is healthy enough.”

In 2021, only sporadic cases were reported for the majority of the year, but cases increased at the end of October (week 43 of 2021).

Source: Outbreaknewstoday

Ambassador Christopher J. Lamora visited Laquintinie Hospital in Douala, accompanied by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Country Director Dr. Emily Kainne Dokubo. In partnership with Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Health, CDC provides care and treatment services through implementing partners in 308 facilities across all 10 regions of the country. Through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), CDC has supported clinical and laboratory services at Laquintinie Hospital since 2009.  Over the past three years, CDC has invested over $975,000 (588 million FCFA) to strengthen the hospital’s HIV prevention, care, and treatment services for all people living with HIV, including children, adolescents, adults, and key and vulnerable populations.

Laquintinie Hospital recently celebrated its 90th anniversary and now serves as the reference hospital in Littoral Region.  Under the leadership of Professor Noel Essomba, the hospital has approximately 910 beds managed by over 1300 staff, including 46 General Physicians and 113 Specialists, and receives more than 80,000 patients for consultations per year.  Established in 1988, the HIV Treatment Center serves as a model for decentralization of antiretroviral treatment in Cameroon.  Approximately, 5,400 people living with HIV receive treatment through CDC/PEPFAR support.  Also, through PEPFAR, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) supports a continuum of care for key and priority populations and orphans and vulnerable children, and funds procurement and delivery of antiretroviral drugs and HIV laboratory reagents and supplies.  Additionally, USAID supports community-led monitoring to ensure the hospital’s compliance with the government policy to eliminate HIV user fees at service delivery points.

Source: Tdpelmedia

Cameroon’s Minister of Public Health, Malachie Manaouda on Tuesday called for more caution as the cholera death toll in the Central African nation exceeded 100.

In a latest update on the cholera outbreak, Manaouda said in a tweet that 226 new cases and two death cases were reported in the Littoral and Southwest regions between March 23 and April 5.

According to the update, a total of 4,627 confirmed cases have been reported in six regions since October last year, among which were 105 deaths, representing a case fatality rate of 2.3 percent.

The outbreak of cholera in Cameroon has remained persistent, occurring annually but the latest outbreak has been severe, affecting mostly impoverished communities with poor sanitation and lack of clean water, according to health officials.

Cameroon plans to begin a mass vaccination campaign to curb the epidemic, according to officials.

Cholera is a highly virulent disease characterized in its most severe form by a sudden onset of acute watery diarrhea that can lead to death by severe dehydration.

Source: Xinhuanet

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced Tuesday the suspension of its humanitarian activities in an English-speaking area of Cameroon due to the detention four local employees accused by local authorities of “complicity” with separatists.

“MSF has officially announces the suspension of its humanitarian activities in the South West region of Cameroon today”, the NGO wrote in a statement Tuesday. Three months after the arrest and detention of four members of its staff in connection with the organization’s “medical work”, the organisation decided to stop its work in one of the two English-speaking regions in the grip of a bloody separatist conflict.

MSF said it had ceased its activities “as of March 29, in order to focus on securing the safe release of its staff”. This is the first time MSF has publicly mentioned the arrests, said Scheherazade Bouabid, MSF’s head of communications for Central and West Africa.

At the end of 2020, the Cameroonian government suspended MSF operations in the northwest, the country’s second largest English-speaking region, accusing its medical teams of “collusion” with armed separatist groups.

4 year-long conflict

In these two regions, where most of the English-speaking minority lives in a predominantly French-speaking country ruled with an iron fist for nearly 40 years by 89-year-old Paul Biya, the army and separatist groups have been clashing almost daily for five years.

Civilians are caught in the middle and are victims of abuses committed by both sides, according to international NGOs and the UN. The conflict has left more than 6,000 people dead and forced more than a million to flee their homes.

“We are in an untenable position: on the one hand, we are providing needed medical assistance; on the other hand, the people providing that assistance are at risk of being prosecuted for their medical activities,” said Sylvain Groulx, MSF’s head of programs in Central Africa, quoted in the statement.

“We need the conditions in place to allow us to carry out our activities in a safe and secure environment, so that we can fulfill our obligations to patients,” he added, arguing that MSF remains open to dialogue with the Cameroonian authorities to resume its activities.

Contacted by AFP, the Cameroonian authorities had not reacted Tuesday afternoon. The four employees arrested are all Cameroonian, including a 33-year-old nurse and a 41-year-old driver.

“On December 27, 2021, two MSF staff members were arrested after referring a patient with a gunshot wound whose condition required urgent assistance,” the NGO reported, adding that two other MSF staff members were also arrested in the following weeks. They have since been detained in Buea, the capital of the southwest, as part of an “investigation into complicity in secessionism.”

Source: AFP

At least 6,000 people have been infected with cholera and close to 100 others have died from the disease in Cameroon which is struggling to contain an outbreak of the water-borne disease.

According to the country’s public health ministry, the number of cholera patients received in hospitals was increasing daily. Officials have blamed a shortage of clean drinking water in towns and villages due to a long dry season for the outbreak.

An official with the ministry noted that cholera had spread to more than 40 percent of major towns, including the capital Yaoundé, the economic capital Douala, and western commercial towns such as Buea, Limbe and Bafoussam.

Linda Esso, director of epidemics and pandemics at the ministry, said several villages had reported cholera cases and the entire country was at risk from the outbreak.

The public health chief of Limbe in Cameroon’s Southwest region, Filbert Eko, said the area was the worst affected in the central African country recording more than 800 cases since February.

200 out of 300 patients reportedly had been treated and discharged from a government hospital in Limbe in just the last seven days.

Eko added that the outbreak prompted authorities to quarantine patients to prevent the disease from spreading further.

“The treatment center will be separated from the hospital and from the public. No outsider will be allowed to have access to the patients,” Eko said.

“We don’t want contact between families and the patients. We are taking [efforts] upon ourselves, searching for resources to feed these patients free of charge.”

President Paul Biya has deployed the ministers of water and health to assess the situation in affected regions.

The Public Health Minister, Manaouda Malachie, cautioned that Douala’s New Bell Prison had become an epicenter of the outbreak but did not give any details on whether any inmates had been infected or died from the disease.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Water Gaston Eloundou Essomba directed the Cameroon Water Distribution Company, the body in charge of water distribution in the country, to provide clean water to villages and towns affected by the outbreak.

Cameroon usually suffers from cholera outbreaks with one of the worst such incidents occurring in 2011 when more than 23,000 people were infected and 800 others died.

Source: Africa.cgtn

An outbreak of cholera in Cameroon has claimed 62 lives since October, prompting the central African nation to vaccinate people against the water-borne disease.

A donation of 800,000 vaccines from the World Health Organization allowed the country to start a campaign on March 16, Health Minister Manouada Malachie said in a tweet Friday.

More than 2,000 cases have been reported since the epidemic started, with 29 deaths in the week leading up to March 22 alone, he said. The new cases were in South West, Littoral and Center regions, the country’s main cocoa-growing regions. The capital, Yaounde, has also recorded cases, reporting two deaths in recent days.

Source: Bloomberg

Hospitals in Cameroon’s Southwest region have been swamped with hundreds of patients as cholera deaths have increased to 44, a health official said.

“It is a very serious situation,” Filbert Eko Eko, public health chief of the region, told Xinhua news agency.

Over 1,700 cases have been reported in the region from March 11 to 23, according to figures released by the Southwest Regional Delegation of Public Health.

At least 14 people died of the disease between Wednesday and Thursday, raising the death toll to 44 in the last two weeks, Eko said.

“We have cases practically all over our region. Our three major treatment centres are completely overpowered,” Eko told Xinhua.

He said hospitals do not have enough beds for patients, some of whom are staying in tents or along corridors in the facility premises.

The situation is dire in the seaside resort town of Limbe, where at least 400 infections were detected on Wednesday, according to officials.

Eko blamed the outbreak mainly on the lack of clean water and public latrines in the region.

On Wednesday, the region’s governor, Bernard Okalia Bilai, urged local officials to build toilets in the affected areas within 30 days.

Source: Xinhuanet

Health authorities in the Southwest region said on Wednesday, at least 12 people have died within 72 hours and over 400 cases were reported in a cholera epidemic that is sweeping across the region.

The chief town of the region, Buea and the touristic seaside resort town of Limbe have been particularly affected, according to officials.

“Hospitals are overwhelmed with patients. Some are lying in the corridors of the hospital and we are trying to set up makeshift structures to host more patients. The situation is critical,” Samuel Rinyu, medical personnel working in one of the hospitals hosting patients in the region said.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Francophone governor Bernard Okalia Balai held a crisis meeting in Limbe as residents panicked after the news of the cholera outbreak went viral.

Bilai in a typical CPDM style urged residents to stay calm and observe basic hygienic rules and announced that authorities in the region have opened a solidarity fund to help victims.

Cases of the disease which is spread by ingesting fecal matter and causes acute watery diarrhea were first reported in the region in November last year.

By Xinhuanet with additional editing by Camcordnews

At least 34 people have died so far in a cholera epidemic that is sweeping the Central African nation of Cameroon, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday.

The epidemic has hit at least four regions, including the Littoral region where the commercial capital Douala is located.

In the Southwest region, 28 people have died, and 1,055 others infected. There are 77 cases and four deaths in the Littoral region, the South region has 52 cases and two deaths and the Far North region has reported eight cases, OCHA said.

Cholera cases were first reported in localities in the Littoral and Southwest regions of the country in early January.

Last week, Cameroon’s Minister of Public Health Malachie Manaouda urged people to stay hygienic and report any infections to the hospital.

Outbreaks of the water-borne disease occur regularly in Cameroon, mainly due to poor sanitation and a lack of access to clean drinking water.

Cholera, which is spread by ingesting fecal matter, causes acute watery diarrhea and can kill within hours if not treated.

Source: Xinhuanet

Cameroonian health authorities say at least 1,300 cholera cases have been detected, with nearly three dozen people dying as a result of the outbreak within the past two weeks. Cameroon’s Public Health Ministry says water shortages and poor hygiene have spread the bacterial disease throughout half the country.

Cameroon says the lives of thousands of its citizens are at risk. Manaouda Malachie, the state minister of public health, said five of the country’s 10 regions have been affected by an ongoing cholera outbreak in a press release published Wednesday.

The statement says Bakassi, a southwestern peninsula near the Nigerian border, Cameroon’s commercial hub and coastal city Douala, and Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, are the worst hit by the outbreak. Other locations affected are Buea,Tiko and Mutengene, southwestern commercial towns, as well as Maroua and Garoua on the northern border with Nigeria.

Kelvin Fosong, a community health worker, said he was sent from Buea to Mutengene this week to help civilians affected by the outbreak.

“Since the outbreak, we have engaged ourselves into community sensitization, most especially in the quarters where deaths were reported. We have been there visiting homes, disinfecting toilets, public taps and water points. We teach them (civilians) how to take care of their environment with the help of some doctors (health workers),” Fosong said, speaking from Mutengene.

Cameroon’s public health minister said 32 of the 1,300 people affected by the outbreak have died within two weeks, and added that the figures may be higher. The government reports that about 70% of the country’s 26 million people visit African traditional healers and go to hospitals only when their health conditions get worse. The government says it is difficult to gather statistics from African traditional healers in the country’s towns and villages.

Linda Esso, director of epidemics and pandemics at Cameroon’s Public Health Ministry, said after the first cases were reported, the government started telling people to go to the nearest hospitals if they experience watery diarrhea, vomiting or dehydration. She said civilians should follow basic hygiene practices such as washing their hands with soap, and using and cleaning latrines after defecation.

Esso warned against eating uncooked raw food and unwashed fruits or drinking water that has not been boiled. She said keeping latrines dirty increases the risk of cholera.

Mathias Ngund, the most senior government health official in Buea, an English-speaking southwestern town where 30 cholera cases have been reported with three deaths, said the lack of clean drinking water is exacerbating the spread of cholera in Buea. He said he has informed the government that the provision of water is an emergency need.

“We went to all the houses of suspected cases, we disinfected them and also we have had coordination meetings with the administrative authorities to respond to the outbreak,” Ngund said.

The central government in Yaounde said it will provide clean drinking water to arid towns and villages in Cameroon but did not say when. Authorities are encouraging civilians to boil water from wells and streams before drinking it.

Cameroon said a cholera outbreak in November claimed 13 lives, with several hundred people infected, as it prepared to host the African Football Cup of Nations, or AFCON. Cameroon hosted AFCON from January 9 to February 6. The government had promised to stop its spread before the continental football event that brought several thousand football fans, players and match officials to the country.

Source: VOA