{"id":285290,"date":"2019-08-28T03:30:18","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T07:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CAIiEE4svF3R0SOsdk2tAlWseQwqGQgEKhAIACoHCAow4OH9CjCg6_UCMJ-42gU?oc=5"},"modified":"2026-10-23T11:12:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T15:12:59","slug":"cholera-prevention-kulubi-st-gabriel-pilgrimage-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/285290","title":{"rendered":"Health workers set up latrines, chlorinated water and cholera clinics for pilgrims at Kulubi St Gabriel during Ethiopia\u2019s 2019 outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ethiopian health authorities and the World Health Organization installed latrines and hand-washing stations and opened cholera treatment centres at Kulubi, in eastern Oromia, for the St Gabriel pilgrimage during the 2019 cholera outbreak.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/figure>\n

An Ethiopian Orthodox pilgrim with prayer beads and a hand cross in Addis Ababa, photographed in September 2012. (Rod Waddington \/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0) [file photo]<\/em><\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of pilgrims from across Ethiopia and abroad travel each year to Kulubi St Gabriel church in the East Hararghe Zone of Oromia for the feast of the Archangel Gabriel, which followers of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church celebrate in July and December. Such crowds make good hygiene very hard to maintain and favour the spread of cholera, WHO said in a feature published on Aug. 27, 2019.<\/p>\n

The risk was higher that year because Ethiopia was in the middle of an outbreak. The first case was reported on April 25, 2019, in the Amhara region. By late August, six other regions had reported cases, with most of the 985 cases recorded in Amhara, Oromia, Afar and Addis Ababa, WHO said.<\/p>\n

The Oromia Regional Health Bureau and the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, with WHO and partner agencies, put in latrines with hand-washing stations, set up cholera treatment centres and emergency clinics, and dug pits for the safe disposal of solid waste. Mobile education teams in an advocacy van spread messages on safe food preparation and cholera prevention.<\/p>\n

WHO water and sanitation specialists helped regional health and water bureaus inspect and monitor water quality. At treatment centres, they showed health workers how to prepare chlorine solutions of different strengths and checked that there were enough toilets and showers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis collaborative work in addressing prevention during religious festivals, and especially with the support of the religious leaders, gives us a fighting chance to control and possibly even eliminate cholera from Ethiopia,\u201d said Dr. Aggrey Bategereza, WHO\u2019s acting representative in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

Mass gatherings at holy sites have long been a concern for cholera control in Ethiopia, where many pilgrims also visit churches and monasteries for holy water. Cholera is spread by food and water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae and can kill within hours if untreated, but most patients recover with prompt oral rehydration.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong> World Health Organization via ReliefWeb: \u201cProtecting devotion from cholera in pilgrimage sites in Ethiopia\u201d (Aug. 27, 2019)<\/a>, World Health Organization: Cholera fact sheet<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ethiopian health authorities and the World Health Organization installed latrines and hand-washing stations and opened cholera treatment centres at Kulubi, in eastern Oromia, for the St Gabriel pilgrimage during the 2019 cholera outbreak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":838118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-285290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/ethiopian-orthodox-pilgrim-addis-ababa-2012.jpg?fit=876%2C1131&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1cds","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285290"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":838120,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285290\/revisions\/838120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}