Cholera cases exceed 200,000 in Yemen, death toll tops 1,300: UN

Rasa - The United Nations says the number of suspected cholera cases in war-stricken Yemen has surpassed 200,000 while more than 1,300 people have died.

News ID: 430581

Date: 25 June 2017 - 21:21

RNA - The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) released the figures in a joint statement on Saturday.

“In just two months, cholera has spread to almost every governorate” of Yemen, the statement read, adding that there are an average of 5,000 new cases every day.

It also noted that children made up a quarter of fatalities and warned that the death toll is expected to rise.

“We are now facing the worst cholera outbreak in the world,” the statement said, stressing that the epidemic is “the direct consequence of two years of heavy conflict” in Yemen, which has led to the collapse of health, water and sanitation systems, increased rates of malnutrition, and unpaid salaries.

Rapid-response teams, it said, are going house-to-house informing people about the ways to protect themselves by cleaning and storing drinking water.

Earlier this week, UNICEF spokeswoman Meritxell Relano estimated that the number of Yemenis infected with cholera will rise to more than 300,000 by the end of August,

Cholera is an acute diarrheal infection that is spread through contaminated food or water. It can be effectively treated with the immediate replacement of lost fluids and salts, but without treatment it can be fatal.

Cholera infection first became epidemic in Yemen last October and spread until December, when it dwindled. The second outbreak began in the Arabian Peninsula country on April 27.

Latest UN figures show that the conflict in Yemen has left 18.8 million of the country's 28 million population in need of humanitarian aid and almost seven million on the brink of famine.

Yemen has been under a brutal military campaign led by Saudi Arabia for more than two years in a bid to eliminate the Houthi movement and reinstall the Riyadh-friendly former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. The Saudi military campaign, however, has failed to achieve its goals.

The protracted war has already killed over 12,000 Yemenis, with the US and the UK assisting the Saudis in the aggression.

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