WHO PARTNERS KARONGA DISTRICT HOSPITAL IN CHOLERA FIGHT

CRS June 14, 2023

1 minute read

By Tiwonge Kampondeni – Mana

World Health Organisation (WHO) has partnered with Karonga District Hospital (KDH) in building capacity towards achieving a zero cholera case status for the district.

District Environmental Health Officer (DEHO) for Karonga Lewis Tukula said among others WHO has funded orientation activities for the district’s Public Healthy Emergences Committee members, supervisors, and cholera rapid response teams from health facilities.

Tukula said the orientation is aimed at embracing two cholera management approaches namely Cholera Case Area Targeted Intervention (CATI) and Cholera Case Cluster Targeted Interventions (CLUSTI).

“These two approaches have proved successful since we started implementing them in April. We had two cases around May 26 and we applied these approaches, and that helped us not to register further cases,” he said.

CATI is a specific package of tailored response activities implemented by a mobile response team targeting case and neighboring households in a defined perimeter. The aim is to stop cholera transmission around case residences.

While CLUSTI is a specific package of tailored interventions implemented by a mobile response team targeting local clusters of cholera cases. The aim is to limit cholera transmission in a given area by targeting local cholera case clusters.

Tukula said the two approaches have been adopted nationally.

He said since the cholera outbreak, they have been working with different partners like Red Cross which also helped in building the capacity of the district in Lupembe and Mulale areas.

He said the coming in of WHO, will extend the capacity-building exercise to more areas within the district.

“We will be able to extend the capacity building to Mpata and Kasowa. What we want is that we should make Karonga cholera free,” Tukula said.

Currently, there are no active cholera cases in the district, but cumulatively 1,410 cases have been registered with 21 deaths since the disease broke out last year.

Mana/tk/ys/sbn