The global medical charity says the situation has worsened with the arrival of refugees from South Sudan, where thousands are infected.

At least 31 people have died from a “rapidly spreading” cholera outbreak that has sickened more than 1,500 people in Ethiopia‘s Gambella region over the past month, according to Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF.

The international medical charity said on Friday that the situation has worsened with the arrival of people fleeing violence in neighbouring South Sudan.

“Cholera is rapidly spreading across western Ethiopia and in parallel, the outbreak in South Sudan is ongoing, endangering thousands of lives,” MSF said in a statement.

Several regions of Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous nation with about 120 million people, are battling cholera outbreaks, with Amhara – its second-largest region – among the hardest hit.

Cholera is an acute intestinal infection spread through food and water contaminated with the vibrio cholerae bacterium, often of faecal origin.

South Sudan

In South Sudan’s Akobo County, located in the Upper Nile region, 1,300 cholera cases have been reported in the past four weeks, according to MSF. It said recent violence around the Upper Nile between the South Sudanese government and armed groups is “worsening the outbreak”.

“Thousands are being displaced, losing access to healthcare, safe water, and sanitation,” MSF said.

South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation and still hit by chronic instability and poverty, declared a cholera epidemic in October last year.

“In Ethiopia, we are treating patients, providing clean water, and raising awareness about the disease. In South Sudan, we are delivering lifesaving care,” MSF reported.

“An urgent support to health facilities, provision of safe water and cholera vaccination campaign is needed in the affected areas to stop the spread of the disease.”

Preventable disease

According to the World Health Organization, about 4,000 people have died from the “preventable and easily treatable disease” in 2023, up 71 percent from the previous year, mostly in Africa.

The threat of the spread of cholera in Ethiopia is further complicated by the brewing tension between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which observers said could result in an armed conflict.

The warnings stem from new instability in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region, where a civil war from 2020-2022 killed hundreds of thousands of people.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies