In Uganda, El Niño is likely to result in above average rainfall up to February 2016 and an estimated 800,000 people will be at risk of landslides and floods with humanitarian consequences that could last until mid-2016.
According to a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), wet conditions in the country may increase the incidence of infectious diseases such as malaria, cholera and dysentery.
Acute respiratory infections may rise to outbreak levels in 30 of 112 districts, and in October, the Government and partners produced a National El Niño Preparedness and Contingency Plan requiring US$1.4 million.
Meanwhile, due to El Niño conditions, 22 million people are expected to be food insecure across Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti and South Sudan.
The UNOCHA report also states that in Ethiopia alone, 10.2 million people require emergency food assistance and numbers are expected to rise to 18 million by the end of the year.
Further, over 14 million people are food insecure in southern Africa today and the number could rise significantly over the coming months as the planting window has closed and food prices across the region have been on the rise.
Lesotho and Swaziland both expect that one third of their population will be food insecure, while Malawi and Zimbabwe indicate that 3 million and 1.5 million people respectively are already food insecure today.
