The African Union has formed a taskforce that has been tasked with coordinating cholera response activities among member states.
The Africa Elimination of Cholera Epidemics Coordination Taskforce (AECECT) will be hosted at the AU Secretariat in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia under the leadership of member states.
The taskforce will be supported by the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organisation, Unicef, the Global Taskforce on Cholera Control (GTFCC) and other relevant partners.
“The taskforce will support the cooperation in cholera response while maintaining full coherence with the Ending Cholera Global Roadmap to 2030,” the AU said in a communiqué.
While the taskforce will maintain political oversight through the AU institutional arrangements, the GTFCC will facilitate technical support through the WHO technical coordination platforms based at the WHO hubs in collaboration with Africa CDC, Unicef and relevant partners.
The AU has further called on the relevant agencies to jointly facilitate and support member states to formulate national cholera plans aligned with the GTFCC strategy with robust monitoring and evaluation frameworks to measure progress towards achieving national, regional and global milestones and targets.
“We invite partners to utilize this communiqué to elevate the current cholera crisis in the global landscape ahead of the United Nations 2023 water conference,” it says.
This comes at a time when several African countries including Kenya are battling to contain an active cholera outbreak.
The latest data from the Ministry of Health shows the number of Kenyans who have succumbed to the ongoing cholera outbreak in the country currently stands at 99.
The data shows 76 of those who have died are men while 23 are women with the case fatality rate standing at 1.5.
The total number of cholera cases reported since the first case was recorded last year in October stands at 6,391 as of March 7.
At least 29 countries in Africa and Eastern Mediterranean have reported cholera cases or outbreaks.
