WHO warns Yemen's world largest cholera outbreak may spread in rainy season

Record ID: 903645

  • Title: WHO warns Yemen's world largest cholera outbreak may spread in rainy season
  • Date: 21st July 2017
  • Summary: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (JULY 21, 2017) (REUTERS) UNITED NATIONS BUILDING U.N. REGULAR BRIEFING ONGOING JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO) SPOKESWOMAN, FADELA CHAIB, SAYING: "Every day, we have 5,000 more Yemenis falling sick, with symptoms of acute watery diarrhea or cholera."
  • Embargoed: 4th August 2017 15:58
  • Keywords: Yemen cholera WHO rainy season U.N. hospital conflict children
  • Location: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / HODEIDAH AND SANAA, YEMEN
  • City: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / HODEIDAH AND SANAA, YEMEN
  • Country: Switzerland
  • Topics: Health/Medicine
  • Reuters ID: LVA0016QNVT53
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Yemen's world largest cholera outbreak is far from being controlled and may further spread with the rainy season, the World Organization (WHO) warned on Friday (July 21) even if the rate of new cases appears to be slowing down in some hotspots.
    The WHO reported 368,207 suspected cases and 1,828 deaths in the Arabian peninsula's poorest country between late April and July 19th. Every day, 5,000 more Yemenis are falling sick with acute watery diarrhea or cholera.
    Millions are malnourished in Yemen where famine looms, the United Nations says. A Saudi Arabia-led coalition intervened in Yemen's civil war in 2015, backing government forces fighting Iran-allied Houthi rebels and the fighting has limited access for aid workers.
    According to surveillance data gathered in the past two weeks, there has been a slight decline in suspected cases, in some of the most affected governorates of Amanat Al Asimah, Amran and Sana'a, the WHO said.
    Britain-based NGO Oxfam projected, on the other hand, that the number of suspected cases of cholera could rise to more than 600,000, making the epidemic "the largest ever recorded in any country in a single year since records began", exceeding Haiti's in 2011.
    Oxfam warned that the Yemeni rainy season from July to September would increase the risk of the disease spreading further through water contaminated with faeces.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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