Medical equipment used by caregivers in the Akkar region to treat patients suffering from cholera, in Oct. 2022. (Credit: Joao Sousa / L'Orient Today)
A vaccination campaign against cholera, planned by the Ministry of Health, was launched in nursing homes and rehabilitation centers across Lebanon on Tuesday, according to the state-run National News Agency.
This measure follows the Sunday and Monday evacuation of roughly 20 people from a nursing home in Tripoli, who were hospitalized after contracting the bacterial disease.
The campaign was launched in the Dar al-Rahmeh center in Ain Saadeh, in the Metn region near Beirut, in cooperation with the Lebanese Red Cross. More than 300 seniors and nearly 100 caregivers were vaccinated on Tuesday.
A booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine will also be administered to the same category of people during the initiative.
The campaign encompasses all nursing homes in the country and is part of the first stage of the Ministry of Health's national vaccination campaign, which targets areas where the epidemic is spreading, including the North, Akkar (northern Lebanon), Baalbeck-Hermel, as well as prisons and nursing homes.
Cholera is usually caused by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, which is often found in feces. Infected people may suffer from acute diarrhea, but the disease may also be asymptomatic.
According to the latest official toll published Monday night by the Ministry of Health, 601 people have been infected by cholera in Lebanon since early October. Twenty patients have died.