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The year 2025 will be remembered as the worst year in terms of number of cholera cases in the DRC in the last 25 years. With our CATI interventions, UNICEF and its partners have made important contributions to the protection of populations from this disease and have contributed to the prevention of further spreading. This year, CATI teams were deployed in North Kivu, South Kivu, Tanganyika, Haut Katanga, Haut Lomami, Lualaba, Kinshasa and Tshopo provinces.
In the framework of our CATI activities, 3,669,327 persons (8% more than the 3,376,798 persons reached in 2024), were sensitized regarding cholera issues. At the same time, responses to interrupt cholera transmission took place around 18,085 cases. This is approximately 15% less than the 21,038 cases that were responded to in 2024; this reduction is mostly due to the important geographical spread of the cholera cases that were observed over the past year, even in the endemic provinces, and the fact that CATI teams could not always reach cases in the most remote areas.
This year, a total of 469,294 houses were disinfected and 282,152 households received water treatment products. Understanding that the rapidity of the response is crucial in the effectiveness of the interruption of transmission, CATI teams improved the percentage of responses that took place within 48 hours; namely from 95.4% in 2024 to 97.1% in 2025.
In 2025, UNICEF started a pilot program with flying CATI teams who were deployed to non-endemic provinces severely affected by last year’s outbreak, in order to train local populations in the provision of CATI activities, so that local teams supported by their local DPS or Health Zone could be deployed to affected areas to interrupt transmission. In total, a number of 792 persons were trained in the provinces of Tshopo, Maniema and Equateur. For 2026, we continue to work also with PNECHOL (Programme National d’Elimination du Cholera) for the deployment of Rapid Intervention Teams who can be deployed in case of outbreaks in non-CATI supported areas.
UNICEF-CATI coordinates closely with Provincial Health Divisions, OMS, MSF etc., but also with WASH actors in the different provinces to ensure that gaps in responses such as lack of safe drinking water, sanitation or other issues (break down of REGIDESO, floods, lack of WASH facilities in treatment centers etc.) are identified. CATI-UNICEF carries out advocacy for WASH actors to take action and provides CATI trainings to WASH actors for bigger coverage.
Lastly, it is important to mention that the recent clashes in south Kivu, which have – again – resulted in important displacements, already caused important increases in suspected cholera cases. Analysis shows that in the affected areas of South Kivu, women are more affected by cholera than men, and that most of the patients are displaced persons.