WHO announces restart of preventive cholera vaccinations

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Preventive cholera vaccination programs will restart globally after they were halted for nearly four years due to a vaccine shortage, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. In a joint statement, WHO, vaccine alliance GAVI and the United Nations Children's Fund said stocks of oral cholera vaccines in the global stockpile they manage had improved to nearly 70 million doses last year. The vaccines are distributed free to countries that need them, but they had to be used only in reaction to outbreaks rather than preventative campaigns after a shortage was announced in 2022 because of a surge in demand. The stockpile dropped to 35 million doses and countries grappling with outbreaks requested many more than were available. WHO, GAVI and UNICEF said a first allocation of 20 million doses was now being deployed, with 3.6 million doses going to Mozambique, 6.1 million to Congo and 10.3 million planned for delivery to Bangladesh. "Global vaccine shortages forced us into a cycle of reacting to cholera outbreaks instead of preventing them. We are now in a stronger position to break that cycle," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. Cholera is a diarrheal disease caused by waterborne bacteria. Outbreaks often occur as a result of poverty, conflict or climate crises as health facilities are destroyed, access to clean water is disrupted, or floods spread the bacteria. Mozambique is one of the priority countries after devastating flooding in the southern African nation last month affected around 700,000 people and raised the threat of cholera outbreaks. WHO has previously said that while poverty and conflict remain enduring drivers for cholera around the world, climate change aggravated a global upsurge of the disease that began in 2021 because it contributed to more and wetter storms. The vaccine shortage also prompted WHO to recommend a one-dose vaccination strategy instead of two doses. It said Wednesday a one-dose strategy would remain standard, with two-dose campaigns considered on a case-by-case basis. More than 600,000 cholera cases and nearly 7,600 deaths were reported to WHO last year, the health organization said. Global cholera cases had risen year after year since 2021 before a decline in 2025. However, cholera-related deaths continued to rise.