Geneva: World Health Organization And its allies are recommending that countries temporarily switch to using one dose of cholera vaccine instead of two because of a supply shortage as outbreaks of the water-borne disease continue to rise globally.
In a statement on Wednesday, the United Nations agency and partners including UNICEF and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said a single dose of the vaccine has been shown to be effective in stopping the outbreak “regardless of the exact duration of protection”. The evidence is limited” and appears less in children.
WHO and partner agencies manage a stockpile of cholera vaccines, which are distributed free of charge to countries that need them.
“This last resort decision is a way to avoid making the impossible choice of sending doses from one country to another,” said Dr. Daniela GarroneInternational Medical Coordinator in Doctors without limitsOne of WHO’s partners in managing the global cholera vaccine stockpile.
“Single-dose vaccination will provide less protection, but it is a fair and equitable way to try and protect as many people as possible from simultaneously facing cholera outbreaks.”
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said cholera can sometimes die within a day and warned that outbreaks in 29 countries this year are putting “unprecedented pressure” on the world’s limited vaccine supply. He said officials should aim to ramp up production of the vaccine and that “rations should be only a temporary solution.”
WHO said countries like Haiti, Malawi And Syrians were struggling to contain large outbreaks of disease and climate change could make epidemics more common, as the bacteria that cause disease can breed more quickly in warmer waters.
In 2010, about 10,000 people died in Haiti after the disease was imported by UN peacekeepers.
The WHO said that of the 36 million vaccine doses expected for 2022, 24 million had already been dispatched for vaccination campaigns. It said there was no short-term solution to ramp up production. A global task force on cholera has estimated that the world needs approximately 250 million cholera vaccines by 2025, both to prevent outbreaks and for preventive vaccination campaigns.
Shanta BiotechnicAn Indian subsidiary of French pharmaceutical company Sanofi had earlier announced that it would stop making cholera vaccines by the end of this year, leaving the world with only one manufacturer of easy-to-make oral vaccines: South Korean company Eubiologics.
Doctor Michael RyanThe WHO’s emergency director said it was not possible to predict when countries might go back to using two doses of cholera vaccine.
“It shows the scale of the crisis,” Ryan said, criticizing wealthy countries for not doing more to help boost production.
“It is a sad day for us that we have to go back to the one-dose strategy which is life-saving,” he said. “But if cholera was spreading right now in industrialized and wealthy countries, the cost of production would be covered.”
In a statement on Wednesday, the United Nations agency and partners including UNICEF and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said a single dose of the vaccine has been shown to be effective in stopping the outbreak “regardless of the exact duration of protection”. The evidence is limited” and appears less in children.
WHO and partner agencies manage a stockpile of cholera vaccines, which are distributed free of charge to countries that need them.
“This last resort decision is a way to avoid making the impossible choice of sending doses from one country to another,” said Dr. Daniela GarroneInternational Medical Coordinator in Doctors without limitsOne of WHO’s partners in managing the global cholera vaccine stockpile.
“Single-dose vaccination will provide less protection, but it is a fair and equitable way to try and protect as many people as possible from simultaneously facing cholera outbreaks.”
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said cholera can sometimes die within a day and warned that outbreaks in 29 countries this year are putting “unprecedented pressure” on the world’s limited vaccine supply. He said officials should aim to ramp up production of the vaccine and that “rations should be only a temporary solution.”
WHO said countries like Haiti, Malawi And Syrians were struggling to contain large outbreaks of disease and climate change could make epidemics more common, as the bacteria that cause disease can breed more quickly in warmer waters.
In 2010, about 10,000 people died in Haiti after the disease was imported by UN peacekeepers.
The WHO said that of the 36 million vaccine doses expected for 2022, 24 million had already been dispatched for vaccination campaigns. It said there was no short-term solution to ramp up production. A global task force on cholera has estimated that the world needs approximately 250 million cholera vaccines by 2025, both to prevent outbreaks and for preventive vaccination campaigns.
Shanta BiotechnicAn Indian subsidiary of French pharmaceutical company Sanofi had earlier announced that it would stop making cholera vaccines by the end of this year, leaving the world with only one manufacturer of easy-to-make oral vaccines: South Korean company Eubiologics.
Doctor Michael RyanThe WHO’s emergency director said it was not possible to predict when countries might go back to using two doses of cholera vaccine.
“It shows the scale of the crisis,” Ryan said, criticizing wealthy countries for not doing more to help boost production.
“It is a sad day for us that we have to go back to the one-dose strategy which is life-saving,” he said. “But if cholera was spreading right now in industrialized and wealthy countries, the cost of production would be covered.”