Cholera outbreaks in Africa

24 Jan 2022

The World Health Organization has issued updates on active cholera outbreaks in seven African countries, as reported by 16 January 2021.

Cholera outbreaks have been reported in Benin (1,281 cases with 20 deaths), Cameroon (617 cases with 21 deaths), Democratic Republic of the Congo (10,029 cases with 179 deaths), Ethiopia (582 cases with 7 deaths), Niger (5,591 cases with 166 deaths), Nigeria (107,911 cases with 3,598 deaths) and Togo (39 cases with 5 deaths).

Cholera is an infection spread mainly through food and water that can cause sudden watery diarrhoea.

Advice for Travellers

Cholera is rare in travellers. Mild cases may present as travellers' diarrhoea.

If you are travelling to a country where there is an outbreak of cholera, you should be aware how to:

• practice safe food and water precautions
• practice effective hand hygiene
• treat mild diarrhoea, and when to seek medical attention

A vaccine is available to protect against cholera. Since the risk to travellers is very low, the vaccine is only usually recommended for volunteers or humanitarian workers travelling to work in disaster relief situations.

See the fitfortravel Cholera page for further information.