WASHINGTON, (MILLAT ONLINE/APP/AFP) – El Nino, the
cyclical climatic phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean, is linked to shifts in cholera cases in Africa, providing an early warning that could save lives, scientists said Monday.
During the years when El Nino is warming the eastern Pacific, East
Africa has about 50,000 additional cholera cases a year, new research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests.
By contrast, the years when El Nino is not active, there were 30,000
fewer cholera cases in East Africa, according to the study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers analyzed more than 17,000 annual observations from
3,710 different locations between 2000 and 2014 in Africa, which has the most cholera deaths in the world.
The total number of cases of cholera across Africa as a whole were
about the same in El Nino years as compared with non-El Nino years, but the
geographic distribution of illnesses was “fundamentally different,” the study’s authors said in a statement.
In total, 177 million people live in Africa in the regions where
cholera cases spike with El Nino, and even triple in certain areas.
Cholera is an infectious bacterial disease that can be fatal. It is
typically caught from infected water supplies, resulting in severe vomiting and diarrhea.
“We usually know when El Nino is coming six to 12 months before it
occurs,” said study leader Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Bloomberg School.
“Knowing there is elevated cholera risk in a particular region can
help reduce the number of deaths that result,” he said.