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Description of the crisis
Malawi is one of the countries greatly affected by Tropical Cyclone Freddy, among others, Mozambique and Madagascar. On 4th March 2023, The Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services issued a warning informing the Malawi nation that FREDDY had developed into a Moderate Tropical Storm and was continuing to intensify in the Mozambique Channel and other models indicated that there was a likely high chance of FREDDY recurving towards Mozambique coast. Following the advisory, MRCS initiated an anticipatory action approach tailored to ensuring that the society is prepared in terms of prepositioning of stock, early action plans, and awareness raising on Early Warning to the communities, especially in the targeted areas. In the background, the team continued to monitor other global models to countercheck the prediction and probabilities of the forecast and lead times. The deployed MRCS National Response Team (NRT) targeted the highly projected districts to receive high rainfall amounts which included Blantyre, Phalombe, Mulanje Thyolo, Chikwawa, Nsanje, and Zomba. This report also indicates that heavy rains associated with strong winds started on the 11th and 12th of March 2023. Tropical Cyclone Freddy lashed most of the districts bringing strong winds and heavy rains. In a matter of hours’ communities were being washed out by significant floods and mudslides. It was also revealed that most risk areas were also the same as that of TC Ana. This increased the vulnerabilities of the people as they were not fully recovered from the latter.
On 13th March, a state of disaster was declared in the 14 districts that were severely affected by the cyclone. 17th March 2023: An emergency Appeal was launched by MRCS through the Federation (IFRC). The overall goal of the appeal is to enable 160,000 people (32,000 households) affected by TC Freddy in five (5) affected districts (Blantyre, Chikwawa, Nsanje, Mulanje, and Phalombe) to meet their essential needs in a safe and dignified manner, recover from the crisis and strengthen their resilience to future shock. The government through DODMA made a declaration to close all camps by the 17th of April, 2023, this came after a monitoring visit which showed that there were over 503 camps across the affected district, most of these camps were in schools, and as such they compromised learning. To ensure that the decommissioning process is smooth, the government with support from other partners has supported the decommissioning where some beneficiaries are given either NFI or cash as a return package. Malawi Red Cross Society was key in two main cluster as Coleads, Shelter and also Search & Rescue.
While Malawi was responding to the huge impacts of TC Freddy, it was also facing one of its worst cholera outbreaks in years, affecting all 29 health districts in the country. The outbreak started in March 2022 in Machinga district and was declared a public health emergency by the State President in December 2022.
The outbreak was exacerbated by the rainy season of 2022/2023, which increased the transmission of the waterborne disease. The outbreak peaked in November 2022, with 4,766 cases reported in that month alone. The MoH's epi-week 44 report, released on November 14, 2023, reveals a cumulative case count of 59,088 and a cumulative death toll of 1,769, yielding a 3% case fatality rate. The Ministry of Health, with support from partners, implemented various interventions to control the outbreak, including oral cholera vaccination (OCV) campaigns, water and sanitation improvement, case management, and social mobilization.
On 7th November 2023, The Ministry of Health received 2.9 million doses of Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV). The OCV covered 14 high-risk districts namely Karonga, Rumphi, Mzimba North, Mzimba South, Likoma, Nkhatabay, Chitipa, Lilongwe, Salima, Nkhotakota, Kasungu, Nsanje, Zomba, and Blantyre. The cholera outbreak trend shown a significant decline since May 2023, and as of 30th September 2023, only three districts were still reporting sporadic cases.
Therefore, the TC Freddy operation also addressed other emerging issues during the implementation period, such as the hunger crisis affecting the country, and provided support to Blantyre, Zomba, and Chiradzulu. A unified plan was developed, incorporating all donors and partners, which made the work easier, more efficient, and effective