The death toll from the ongoing cholera outbreak in Africa has exceeded 6,700 during 2025, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has said.
Yap Boum II, deputy incident manager for mpox at the Africa CDC, during an online media briefing on Thursday evening, said since the start of this year, Africa has recorded 6,795 deaths due to ongoing cholera outbreaks in different parts of the continent.
Data from the African Union’s specialized healthcare agency showed that some 23 African countries have reported 294,244 cholera cases so far this year. The disease also marked a relatively higher case fatality rate of 2.3 percent when compared to the previous years.
According to the Africa CDC, the number of cholera affected countries, as well as the reported cases and related deaths so far in 2025 has already surpassed last year’s figures.
During the course of 2024, some 20 countries had reported a total of 254,075 cholera cases and 4,725 deaths, with a case fatality rate of about 1.9 percent, it was noted.
“We keep on seeing a rapid increase of cholera. One of the simple indicators is that when we compare 2022 to 2025, which has not even ended, we can see that we have almost tripled both the number of cases and deaths — showing how cholera has been increasing over the years,” Boum said.
South Sudan, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Angola are said to be the most cholera-affected countries in Africa.
South Sudan witnessed the highest number of cholera cases at 75,649 and 1,240 deaths, while Sudan recorded the highest casualties at 1,942 along with 70,371 cases. Conflict-hit DRC have also reported 58,710 cases and 1,747 deaths so far in 2025, according to data from the Africa CDC.
MG/as/APA