Caretaker minister of Health, Firass Abiad, during a press conference at the government hospital in Halba, capital of Akkar, in northern Lebanon, on November 5, 2022. (Credit: Courtesy of Michel Hallak/L'Orient Today))
BEIRUT — Caretaker Health Minister Firass Abiad stressed on Saturday the need to prevent cholera "from becoming endemic" to Lebanon, during the launch of a vaccination campaign against the disease in northern Lebanon.
"We are about to launch a vaccination campaign against cholera after the arrival of a first donation of 13,400 doses of vaccines from France, which will be distributed mainly to frontline workers and health facilities, doctors, nurses, rescue workers and others," Abiad said at a press conference at a government hospital in Halba, the capital of Akkar.
The minister said a national plan to combat cholera will be announced on Tuesday.
"We are focusing on the need to get vaccinated ... in order to ensure an immune coverage exceeding 70 percent for the people in the region," he added. "This is a golden opportunity to prevent the disease from becoming endemic."
Were cholera to become endemic to Lebanon, Abiad said the result would be "a great crisis at the health, agricultural, tourism and economic levels."
He also announced that "a vaccination campaign was launched the day before in prisons, where 4,000 inmates and officials in charge of prisons were immunized."
He finally offered assurances that "this campaign will continue in the regions of Akkar, North and Bekaa."
Examining the water in Beirut
Following the reappearance of cholera in Lebanon, the governor of Beirut, Marwan Abboud, called on the owners and operators of water-filling and ice-making companies to "test their products at their own expense within three weeks and submit the results to the Ministry of Industry."
He also ordered them to "test their products monthly and inform the same ministry of the results."
In October, the World Health Organization announced that wastewater tests carried out in Ain Mreisseh in Beirut, Ghadir station and Bourj Hammoud in Mount Lebanon, confirmed the presence of traces of cholera.
Saturday's update:
Lebanon's Ministry of Health recorded three new cholera cases in the previous 24 hours on on Friday, according to a report published Saturday. This brings the total number of confirmed cases to 416, since the reappearance of the disease on Oct. 5.
Currently, 94 beds are occupied in hospitals to treat patients with cholera or suspected of having cholera. No new deaths were reported by the Ministry, though 18 patients have died of cholera since the beginning of the outbreak.
Additional contributed reporting by Michel Hallak.