Health ministry trains volunteers in Cholera detection

Health authorities have identified local volunteers to help improve early detection of cholera cases in a bid to end the outbreak.

Minister of health Khumbize Chiponda has revealed the development in the latest cholera update.

The move comes amid continued rise of cholera cases and deaths.

In the statement, Chiponda explains that the volunteers will be trained on using simplified case definition to detect signals of cholera.

Each team will conduct daily visits to households to check for cases of cholera or acute watery diarrhea with a target of at least 100 households per day in the assigned community.

The statement explains that when a case is confirmed in a household, the team will conduct daily contact tracing of all persons living within 50 meters radius of the confirmed case regardless of the status of contact and promptly report to health personnel, anyone with signs and symptoms of acute watery diarrhea.

The team will also be tasked to report on communal events with potential for local cholera transmission or spread, such as religious festivals or handling of cholera corpses in unsanitary ways, among others.

This will facilitate early case detection which could lead to early referral of cases, reduce the transmission in the communities as well as reduce the case fatality rates.

Latest statistics show that the country has reported a total of 504 new cases and 13 new deaths.

Cumulative confirmed cases stand at 43,936 and 1,425 deaths since the onset of the outbreak in March last year.

A total of 41,668 people have recovered and 843 are currently in treatments centres.