Mogadishu: Somalia is struggling with a sharp rise in diphtheria cases, with health officials and aid groups warning that children are bearing the brunt of the outbreak.
The highly contagious bacterial disease, which is preventable through vaccination, has seen infections soar nearly tenfold compared with last year. Health authorities say the crisis is straining fragile medical facilities already battling multiple outbreaks of preventable diseases.
Abdulrazaq Yusuf Ahmed, director of Mogadishu’s Demartino public hospital, reported an unprecedented spike in infections this year. “We have received about 49 patients in the whole of 2024, but in just the past four months of 2025, we have treated 497 diphtheria cases,” he said.
Hospital data showed deaths had jumped from 13 last year to 42 so far this year. A report released this month described the resurgence of diphtheria as one of the most urgent and dangerous threats to public health. The Ministry of Health confirmed that, nationwide, at least 1,616 cases and 87 deaths had been recorded since January.
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warned that children under 15 account for roughly 97 percent of infections. “We are seeing a rapid increase in diphtheria among children in central Somalia,” said Frida Athanassiadis, MSF’s Somalia medical coordinator.
MSF said several medical centres lack sufficient resources to respond to the rising caseload. The organisation’s emergency stock of diphtheria antitoxin has already been depleted, leaving the health ministry and the World Health Organization to distribute the limited supply that remains.
The outbreak comes amid a broader rise in vaccine-preventable diseases. In July, cases of measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, cholera, and severe respiratory infections had doubled in Somalia since April. About 60 percent of those affected were children under five. International aid cuts have undermined the health system’s ability to provide routine immunisation and run emergency campaigns.
Health workers and humanitarian organisations are calling for swift action to boost vaccination coverage, replenish medical supplies, and support overstretched hospitals.
