B’desh kicks off vaccination blitz to eliminate cholera

Dhaka: Bangladesh on Wednesday kicked off a drive to vaccinate more than a million people against cholera, which infects tens of thousands a year, as part of an international campaign to eliminate transmission by 2030.
The delta nation has sought to reduce the impact of the disease — which causes acute diarrhoea and spreads through contaminated food and water — through vaccines and by setting up a dedicated treatment hospital.
“We have brought down the mortality rate in cholera to almost zero in Bangladesh,” said senior scientist Firdausi Qadri at the Dhaka-based International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research. But she admitted that the number of infections was still very high.
Bangladesh has an estimated 100,000 cases a year, according to authorities, but plans to immunise half its 168 million people in the next decade.
Some 800,000 Rohingya and 600,000 locals were vaccinated in that campaign. (AFP)