<div><b><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Mozambique is going through its worst cholera outbreak in more than a decade in the wake of Cyclone Freddy, the World Health Organization said Friday.</span><br></b></div><div><br></div><div>"While cholera outbreaks regularly occur in Mozambique between October to April, with almost 21,000 cases and 95 deaths, this is the largest outbreak in more than a decade," said Severin von Xylander, the WHO's representative in the southeast African country.</div><div><br></div><div>"The outbreak is still expanding geographically," he told reporters in Geneva in a briefing via video link from Maputo. Eight of the country's 11 provinces have been affected.</div><div><br></div><div>Quelimane is the worst-affected city and in the last 24 hours, 132 people have been admitted to cholera treatment centres and 350 people have received cholera care visits.</div><div><br></div><div>"After the landfall of Freddy, the number of cases exploded from less than 20 a day and increased tenfold" in the city, Von Xylander said.</div><div><br></div><div>A first cholera vaccination campaign started in late February in four provinces. More than 715,000 people were given a single shot.</div><div><br></div><div>A second campaign was launched Thursday in Quelimane, targeting 410,000 people.</div><div><br></div><div>Vaccination programmes will be extended to other provinces, with more than 1.35 million people currently being targeted.</div><div><br></div><div>WHO teams are responding to five concurrent health emergencies in Mozambique: besides cholera and the Cyclone Freddy flooding, polio, Covid-19 and an ongoing humanitarian crisis in the north are causing a situation that is "overwhelming" health systems, said Von Xylander.</div><div><br></div><div>Cyclone Freddy destroyed more than 132,000 homes and 184,000 people were displaced, and while the floods are now receding, access to safe water is "challenging", he said, while around a third of crops have been destroyed.</div><div><br></div><div>"In the coming weeks, the number of malaria cases will drastically increase and the malnutrition rate -- already very high -- will go up," said Von Xylander, reports AFP</div><div><br></div><div>"I don't intend this brief to be a scaremonger, but I hope to raise the alarm for a concerning situation currently lived here by millions of individuals," he said.</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>