GENEVA (Reuters) – The global stockpile of cholera vaccines that the World Health Organization (WHO) is helping manage is “currently empty or extremely low”, an official said on Friday, amid a resurgence of the disease in the world.
The UN health agency says death rates around the world are on the rise and around 30 countries have reported cholera outbreaks this year, about a third more than in a typical year.
“We have no more vaccines. More and more countries continue to ask for them and it is extremely difficult,” said Philippe Barboza, WHO manager for cholera and epidemic diarrheal diseases.
The emergency stock held by the International Vaccine Supply Coordinating Group, which is managed by WHO and other partners, typically has around 36 million doses per year.
Part of the shortage would be linked to the decision of an Indian manufacturer to cease its exports, said Philippe Barboza, without giving details. He added that a South African manufacturer was considering starting production of a vaccine but it would take “a few years”.
“It is probably much less attractive to develop a cholera vaccine, so essentially a vaccine for poor countries, than to develop COVID vaccines for which the revenue generated is much higher,” he said. A batch of over a million doses arrived in Haiti this week.
“It is unacceptable in the 21st century for people to die from a disease that is very well known and very easy to treat,” added the official.
(Report Emma Farge; French version Jean Rosset, edited by Kate Entringer)
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