Another 26 people died because of it cholera in Cameroon, where in the last two weeks the outbreak of the highly contagious disease has worsened again, with the death toll thus reaching 426 dead from October 2021, an official of the Ministry of Health of the central African state announced yesterday Thursday.

From the end of March, at Cameroon a large increase in cases is recorded, after a period of recession of the epidemic, according to World Health Organization (WHERE).

The number of confirmed cases rose to 1,868 yesterday, according to Linda Eso, an official at the Ministry of Health.

Cholera, a disease that causes acute diarrhea and can kill within hours in the absence of treatment, it reappears sporadically in the huge central African country of more than 25 million inhabitants. By 2023, cases have been identified in 14 African countries, the WHO said in a report released yesterday.

The WHO, part of the UN system, has expressed particular concern over the fact that several of the country’s are recording higher mortality rates than in previous years.

In Cameroon, “more than 79% of cases arrive at health facilities in a relatively serious to very serious condition,” which increases the chances that the cases will prove fatal, according to a health ministry report obtained by Reuters news agency.

A previous cholera outbreak in Cameroon, from January to August 2020, claimed the lives of 66 people.

As of early 2021, the WHO estimated that 1.3 to 1.4 million cases of cholera and 21,000 to 143,000 deaths from the disease occur each year globally.