CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The World Health Organization said Wednesday that preventive cholera vaccination programs will be restarted globally after a nearly four-year pause due to vaccine shortages.
The WHO, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and UNICEF said in a joint statement that the global stockpile of oral cholera vaccine they manage had grown to nearly 70 million doses last year.
The vaccines are distributed free to countries in need, but after shortages were declared in 2022 due to a surge in demand, they can only be used in response to the outbreak, not in preventive activities. Stockpiles are down to 35 million doses, and countries grappling with the outbreak need far more doses than are available.
The WHO, GAVI and UNICEF said the first batch of 20 million vaccine doses allocated has now been deployed, with 3.6 million doses destined for Mozambique, 6.1 million doses for Congo and 10.3 million doses planned for Bangladesh.
“The global vaccine shortage has forced us into a cycle of responding to cholera outbreaks rather than preventing them. We are now in a better position to break this cycle,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
Cholera is a diarrheal disease caused by water-borne bacteria. Disease outbreaks often result from poverty, conflict or climate crises because sanitation facilities are destroyed, clean water supplies are disrupted, or floods spread bacteria.
Mozambique is among the priority countries in southern Africa affected by devastating floods last month, affecting some 700,000 people and raising the threat of a cholera outbreak.
The WHO has previously said that while poverty and conflict remain persistent drivers of cholera around the world, a global surge in cholera outbreaks starting in 2021 is exacerbated by climate change, which causes more and wetter storms.
Vaccine shortages have also prompted WHO to recommend a one-dose vaccination strategy instead of two. The company said Wednesday that the one-dose strategy will remain standard and will consider two-dose campaigns on a case-by-case basis.
More than 600,000 cholera cases and nearly 7,600 deaths were reported to WHO last year, the health organization said.
Since 2021, global cholera cases have increased year by year and declined in 2025. However, cholera-related deaths continue to rise.
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