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News > World

Cholera Cases Exceed 100,000 as Yemen's Epidemic Worsens

  • A woman with cholera receives treatment in Sanaa, Yemen, June 6 2017.

    A woman with cholera receives treatment in Sanaa, Yemen, June 6 2017. | Photo: EFE

Published 8 June 2017
Opinion

Aid charity Oxfam says someone dies almost every hour in the war-torn country.

Latest figures from the World Health Organization show the number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen has risen to over 100,000.

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More than 780 people have died in the latest outbreak which began at the end of April.

The aid charity Oxfam says someone dies almost every hour and the country is on the brink of famine with 7 million people facing severe hunger and 18.8 million in need of aid.

"To date, 101,820 suspected cholera cases and 789 deaths have been reported in 19 governorates," the WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told Reuters.

The organization is warning that the number of cases could rise to 300,000.

The United Nations says the rapid spread of the disease highlights the humanitarian catastrophe in the nation after two years of conflict.

A report published on Wednesday by the U.N. Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, said "Yemen is in the grip of a severe cholera epidemic of an unprecedented scale."

"Health and sanitation workers have not been paid for over eight months, only 30 percent of required medical supplies are being imported into the country, garbage collection in the cities is irregular, and more than 8 million people lack access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation," the U.N. statement said.

A Saudi-led multinational coalition, backed by the U.S. and U.K., launched a military campaign in support of the Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in March 2015 after he was ousted by Houthi rebels.

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Since then, the fighting has left at least 8,050 people dead and 45,100 others injured.

The cholera outbreak is the second wave of an epidemic that began in October and spread until December when the number of cases declined.

But it was never brought fully under control.

Oxfam is calling for a "cholera cease-fire" to allow health workers to halt the spread of the disease, adding that the published number of cases was probably an underestimate.

The charity's Yemen Country Director Sajjad Mohammed Sajid said, "Cholera is simple to treat and prevent but while the fighting continues the task is made doubly difficult."

Sajjad added that "A massive aid effort is needed now. Those backers of this war in Western and Middle Eastern capitals need to put pressure on parties to the fighting to agree a ceasefire to allow public health and aid workers to get on with the task.”

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