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Cholera Outbreak Kills 214 - Malawi


A woman dilutes chlorine as other women wait to receive the concentrate to protect their households from cholera outbreak in Likuni, Malawi, January 27, 2018.
A woman dilutes chlorine as other women wait to receive the concentrate to protect their households from cholera outbreak in Likuni, Malawi, January 27, 2018.

Cholera has killed 214 people in Malawi but infections from one of the country's worst outbreaks in a decade have started to abate after peaking last month, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

"We are working to ensure that this will be the last wave by using a number of preventive interventions." Storm Kabuluzi, director of preventive health services at the health ministry told AFP.

"Epidemics form a wave and as the statistics show, the numbers are going down after they peaked in October," Kabuluzi added.

The ministry of health said 174 new cases were reported on Tuesday, down from a high of more than 200 a day in the third week of October.

The country has recorded 7,499 cases of the disease since March, in what the United Nations said is the largest outbreak to hit the nation in 10 years.

Earlier this week the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN children's agency UNICEF said the country had received 2.9 million doses of oral cholera vaccine to step up its immunization campaign.

The health ministry appealed to faith leaders to encourage followers to seek treatment when reporting symptoms, as some were avoiding doing so on religious grounds.

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