Use of Oral Cholera Vaccine in Humanitarian Emergencies

Overview

Humanitarian emergencies frequently result in mass population movements and resettlement in temporary locations, characterized by overcrowding, economic and environmental degradation, impoverishment, scarcity of safe water, poor sanitation and waste management, absence of shelter, poor nutritional status as a result of food shortages, and poor access to health care. These risk factors place populations affected by a humanitarian emergency at risk of high morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases. In areas where V. cholerae is endemic, the risk of cholera transmission is particularly high and requires rapid and effective interventions to avoid major and devastating outbreaks such as the ones that affected the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1994 and Zimbabwe in 2008‐9.