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Preparedness and readiness measures scaled up to prevent and early detect any suspected cholera case in Syria
30 November 2015 – The WHO country office in Syria has enhanced preparedness and readiness measures for cholera in the whole of Syria in view of the recent outbreak of cholera in Iraq. Cholera remains endemic in a number of countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region although no cholera case has been reported from Syria for some time now. The risk of a cholera outbreak in Syria stems from its severely disrupted safe water and sanitation networks inside the country. More recently, a cholera outbreak in the neighbouring country of Iraq poses additional risk of spillover of cases through population movement between these two countries.
Given the heightened risk of spread of cholera to Syria, WHO has intensified surveillance in the bordering districts, pre-positioned essential medicines, medical and laboratory supplies and enhanced health education activities. WHO’s priority in Syria, given this threat, is to ensure a rapid, fast and integrated concerted effort to respond to all cholera alerts timely, diagnose cases quickly through appropriate laboratory test, treat all suspected case of cholera (with dehydration) early on and find out any other single or cluster of suspected cases through a rapid hunt, thus averting any possibilities of further spread should any cholera case become laboratory confirmed.
WHO is working closely with UNICEF and international nongovernmental organizations, as well as with all other health partners to improve preparedness and readiness measures across the whole of Syria. These concerted efforts to scale up readiness will continue until the threat of importation of cholera in Syria is over.
WHO is supporting the Ministry of Health in developing the epidemic preparedness and response plan for cholera in Syria.