MSF says low vaccination coverage and poor living conditions driving spread of deadly bacterial disease
Diphtheria cases are rapidly increasing across Somalia, officials and humanitarians warn, with children accounting for more than 97% of the cases.
Diphtheria, a highly contagious and deadly bacterial disease that mainly affects children, is preventable by a vaccine. While Somalia has improved vaccination rates in recent years, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) blames the uptick in cases on persisting immunisation gaps.
Abdulrazaq Yusuf Ahmed, the director of Demartino public hospital in the capital, Mogadishu, said: “The number of recorded cases of children sick with diphtheria has increased across the regions in the whole country. We have received about 49 patients in the whole of 2024 but this year, 2025, we have received 497 diphtheria cases during the last four months alone.”
Deaths had risen from 13 to 42, according to a report by Ahmed’s hospital this month. The report described the resurgence of diphtheria as “one of the most urgent and dangerous threats to public health”.
