Appeal history:
● A Preliminary Emergency Appeal was launched on 23 August, 2015 for CHF 1,511,314 for 6 months to assist 678,434 beneficiaries.
● CHF 140,000 was allocated from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC)
Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) as start-up funds.
● Operations update no. 1 was published on 22 September 2015 and provided a progress update on the deployment of staff and volunteers.
● Operations update 2 was published on 2 October, 2015 aligning activities with anticipated funding.
A. Situation analysis
Description of the disaster
Cases of cholera were reported in different counties in the country following an outbreak that was picked by surveillance system in the last week of December 2014, in Nairobi County. Twenty nine (29) counties reported cases and this included counties that had successfully controlled the outbreak, 10 counties still have ongoing outbreaks , Counties such as Kirinyaga, Embu, Baringo and Migori (among others) reported new cases after successfully controlling the first wave of outbreak and were declared as cholera free. Other counties such as Baringo and Wajir reported cases in sub-counties that had previously not reported any case .Some counties are vast and an outbreak in one part of the county may not be related to an outbreak in another part of the county in terms of transmission). New outbreaks were also reported in Marsabit and Tharaka Nithi. As of 4 April 2016, the National figures for cases and fatalities were 14,007 and 225 deaths respectively (Case Fatality Rate 1.6%). The Ministry of Health took lead in outbreak control (management of cases and in efforts for prevention of new infections) and although significant gains had been made, re-emergence of second and third waves of the outbreak is a big challenge in the control efforts. This has resulted in cases being reported months from the index case. Laboratory investigations in the recent past pointed that the Vibrio responsible for the outbreak was Vibrio cholerae (serovar ogawa). Results for genetic mapping were not shared and therefore not quite clear whether it was the same serotype causing the outbreak in the 29 counties.
On 2 August 2015, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) released 140,124 Swiss franc from the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) as a loan to support the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) respond to the needs of the affected population. The DREF loan operation was intended to support 30,893 households (185,360 people) with health care, water, sanitation and hygiene promotion activities in the Wajir and Baringo counties over a period of 3 months.
The appeal coverage was only 22%. The IFRC, on behalf of the Kenya Red Cross, would like to thank all those that have contributed to this Emergency Appeal namely: China Red Cross - Hong Kong branch, Finnish Red Cross, Japanese Red Cross Society, Red Cross of Monaco, and the Netherlands Red Cross (from the Netherlands Government).
For details on the situation in specific counties refer to operations update 2.