Association between Conflict and Cholera in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Peer reviewed, Journal article
Published version
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3041821Utgivelsesdato
2022Metadata
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Originalversjon
Charnley, G. E.C., Jean, K., Kelman, I., Gaythorpe, K. A. M. & Murray, K. A. (2022). Association between Conflict and Cholera in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 28(12), 2472-2481. doi: https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2812.212398Sammendrag
Cholera outbreaks significantly contribute to disease mortality and morbidity in low- and middle-income countries. Cholera outbreaks have several social and environmental risk factors and extreme conditions can act as catalysts. A social extreme with known links to infectious disease outbreaks is conflict, causing disruption to services, loss of income and displacement. Here, we used the self-controlled case series method in a novel application and found that conflict increased the risk of cholera in Nigeria by 3.6 times and 19.7% of cholera outbreaks were attributable to conflict. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), conflict increased the risk of cholera by 2.6 times and 12.3% of cholera outbreaks were attributable to conflict. Our results highlight the importance of rapid and sufficient assistance during conflict-related cholera outbreaks, while also working towards conflict resolution and addressing pre-existing vulnerabilities such as poverty and access to healthcare. Article Summary Line Conflict significantly increased the risk of cholera outbreaks in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo and pre-existing vulnerabilities and conflict resolution should be a top priority to protect health. Association between Conflict and Cholera in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo