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Ethiopia: Health Cluster Bulletin #6, July, 2019

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Ethiopia
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Health Cluster
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Highlights

  • 1090 cases of cholera, with 45 confirmed by culture have been reported since April 2019. There are active outbreaks in Oromia and Harari.

  • Due to health system barriers like cost sharing and IDP/returnees status, there have been reports of returnees lacking access to essential health services in some areas. Advocacy with the health authorities for solutions continues.

  • EPHI compiled a list of 171 partially and completely destroyed health facilities in locations of return. A more detailed HeRAMS exercise has been planned. It is important for all stakeholders to start focusing on rehabilitation as part of recovery, to wean the communities from MHNT.

Situation update

1090 cases of cholera, with 45 confirmed by culture have been reported since April 2019. There are active outbreaks in Oromia and Harari, as well as sporadic cases from Addis Ababa and Tigray. The outbreaks in Amhara and Dire Dawa are declared over as these regions didn’t report cases for more than 30 days. WHO, UNICEF, SCI, MSF-E, MCMDO, IRC, IMC, AAH, Care and WVE are supporting various elements of the cholera outbreak response in different locations.

The cholera outbreak in Amibara woreda of Afar region was controlled after successful maintenance work on the water pipe system supplying the farming area. No cholera cases were reported from the commercial farms of Tigray and Amhara during this planting season. However, the possibility of outbreaks cannot be excluded because there was no report of a major improvement of the WaSH situation in these farms.

Suspected measles cases totaling 7,899 were reported from 4 regions from week 1 to 32, 2019; Amhara (703), Afar (548), Oromia (4,360) and Somali (2,288). More than 72% of the cases had never received vaccination indicating the need to improve routine immunization.

The physical return of IDP was completed. Field assessments have indicated that essential services to the returnees are hampered by partial or complete destruction of health facilities, failure of health workers to return to their duty stations, and inability of health facilities to provide free treatment because of shortage of medical supplies.