The mass cholera vaccine campaign Ministry of Health rolled out on Tuesday in selected districts received a positive response with communities flocking to vaccination centres to get the oral doses, spot-checks have revealed.

The Nation checked in some of the districts hard hit by the cholera outbreak such as Nkhata Bay, Mzimba and Karonga where authorities said community members, particularly women and school-going children, were seen flocking to vaccination centres.

Malawi Broadcasting Corporation journalist Chikondi Phikiso receives her
dose during the launch of the campaign

In Nkhata Bay, as at 2pm on Tuesday, about 257 people had received the oral vaccine at Chigonadzungu vaccination site which is under Cumnock Health Centre, a Christian Health Association of Malawi facility.

In an interview on Tuesday, Mzimba North director of health and social services Prince Chirwa attributed the positive response to the damage the outbreak has caused in the district.

He said the district is targeting about 291 000 people and expressed optimism that it will meet the target as his office is expecting to be vaccinating about 58 000 people per day.

Said Chirwa: “The last time the district registered a cholera outbreak was about 10 years ago. So, this is scaring people, hence the positive response.”

However, in Mangochi, which has overtaken Nkhata Bay as the epicentre of the outbreak, the doses were yet to be delivered.

As of November 27 2022, Mangochi had 2 031 cholera cases with 39 deaths while Nkhata Bay recorded about 1 448.

Ministry of Health director of preventive health services Stone Kabuluzi said Mangochi was not among the initial targeted districts to receive cholera vaccine.

But he said Mangochi only started registering increased cases at the time the ministry was finalising cholera vaccine logistics.

Three weeks ago, Malawi received 2.9 million doses of cholera vaccine from the World Health Organisation, which targeted about 14 hard hit districts. The districts are Karonga, Chitipa, Ruphi, Nkhata Bay, Likoma, Mzimba, Kasungu, Lilongwe, Salima, Nkhotakota, Blantyre, Mangochi, Zomba and Nsanje.

On eligibility for the vaccines considering that the total population in the targeted districts is close to eight million people against 2.9 doses, Kabuluzi said the vaccine will only be administered to people in the districts’ hotspot areas.

He further asked Malawians to observe hygiene practices such as washing hands, using safe and potable water to fight the outbreak.

As of November 26, the country had registered about 10 153 cholera cases and 295 deaths since the first case was reported in March this year at Machinga District Hospital.

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