Bangladesh to kick start 1st nationwide campaign to eradicate cholera

Bangladesh is about to begin its very first nationwide vaccination program against cholera. According to Efe reports, the program is said to start from 25th February 2020. While water-borne diseases like cholera are still prevailing strongly in the major parts of Bangladesh including its capital city, it raises a serious question for the citizen’s access to safe drinking water. These endemic water-borne diseases including cholera can be fatal as well. More than 109,052 cases of cholera disease have been surfaced with roughly estimated 3,272 annual deaths.

The vaccination drive is said to start off concentrating six highly affected areas of the capital, Dhaka where the administration of the first dose will be administrated to more than 1.2 million people. In addition to this, a month later the second dose will be provided to the recipients of the oral vaccine.

According to Shahnila Ferdous, the healthy service director for communicable diseases, Bangladesh is one of the eight countries that runs a high risk of a cholera outbreak, including other countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Haiti, Congo, and even India. “There are at least 100,000 cases of cholera in each of these countries,” she added.

The initiative was being seen as a part of the country’s formulated National Cholera Control Plan in 2019 as per the World Health Organisation’s Global Task Force on Cholera Control. This also targets to eliminate the disease by 2030 and bring down the alarming rates of cholera cases.

However, there is no official data of cholera patients in the country to the Bangladesh Health Department.

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