Exploring the burden of cholera in the WHO African region: patterns and trends from 2000 to 2023 cholera outbreak data
Introduction Cholera outbreaks remain persistent in the WHO African region, with an increased trend in recent years. This study analyses actual drivers of cholera including correlations with water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) indicators, and climate change trends.Methods This was a cross-sectional descriptive and analytic study. Cholera data from 2000 to 2023 and data relating to cholera drivers were compiled and analysed through multi-level exploratory analysis. We cross-referenced several WASH indicators, and generated a similarity matrix to categorise countries or subnational units into groups using principal component analysis and K-means clustering. We integrated cholera outbreak data with WASH indicators and created a matrix of indicators relevant for analysing cholera burden. We conducted summary statistics, temporal visualisations, Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping, trend analysis and statistical tests for correlations to derive patterns and trends from the data, d
