Weekly epidemiological record 2017

The year 2017 was historic for cholera in several ways: it marked 200 years since the onset of the first recognized cholera pandemic in 1817, while the current seventh pandemic continues as the longest ever recorded. Explosive, country-wide epidemics of cholera killed thousands of people in Yemen (2261), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (1190) and Somalia (1007). Yemen was the first country on record to report more than one million suspected cases in a single year, while DRC (56 190) and Somalia (75 414) approached the highest numbers of cases in their recent history.