Somalia receives 1.4 mln doses of oral cholera vaccine as cases surge

MOGADISHU, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Somalia has received 1.4 million vials of the oral cholera vaccine worth 2.5 million U.S. dollars from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) amid alarm over the increasing number of reported cases in the country.

The vaccines will be distributed to five hotspot districts across the country in a stepped-up effort to stem an outbreak of the disease that, since January, has infected 4,388 people and claimed 54 lives, two-thirds of whom were children, the UNICEF said in a statement issued in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, on Saturday evening.