{"id":20678,"date":"2025-12-08T12:18:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T10:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/drc-battles-worst-cholera-outbreak-in-25-years-unicef\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:31:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:31:56","slug":"drc-battles-worst-cholera-outbreak-in-25-years-unicef","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/drc-battles-worst-cholera-outbreak-in-25-years-unicef\/","title":{"rendered":"DRC battles worst cholera outbreak in 25 years: UNICEF"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is battling its worst cholera outbreak in 25 years which has killed almost 2 000 people since January, the United Nations (UN) Children&#8217;s Fund (UNICEF) said on Monday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">In one case, a quarter of the children in a Kinshasa orphanage, 16 out of 62 died days after the disease swept through, UNICEF added.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8220;DRC children should not be so gravely affected by what is a wholly preventable disease,\u201d UNICEF Spokesperson John Agbor said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Cholera is a severe and potentially fatal diarrhoeal disease that spreads quickly when sewage and drinking water are not adequately treated.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">African health authorities last month raised the alarm over a surge in the disease in Angola, Burundi and other parts of the continent, with an overall 30% increase on cases recorded last year.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">In DRC, conflict and a lack of access to clean water were exacerbating the crisis, and more funding was needed for sanitation, hygiene and health services, UNICEF said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Since January, authorities have recorded 64 427 cases and 1 888 deaths, including 14 818 infections and 340 deaths among children, UNICEF said.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Seventeen of the country&#8217;s 26 provinces are currently impacted, the agency added.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20679,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[],"class_list":["post-20678","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"DRC is battling its worst cholera outbreak in 25 years","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24632,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20678\/revisions\/24632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=20678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}