right when countries needed it most. Malawi in the past used the cholera vaccine for prevention, but “now if you don’t have an outbreak, you don’t get the vaccine,” said Patrick Otim Ramadan, WHO incident manager for regional cholera response in Africa.changed its vaccination protocolClimate change doesn’t only affect cholera through worsening floods and storms. Hotter temperatures and longer and drier droughts can also have an impact.
“We know cholera is seasonal in much of the world, but the associations between precipitation, drought, floods, and cholera are,” Azman said. “In some places, more precipitation increases cholera risk. In some places, it’s less precipitation.” The strain circulating had also been newly introduced from Asia, and scientists are currently studying whether it was more transmissible.