Cholera outbreak in war-torn Yemen
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REBEL authorities in Yemen’s capital have sounded the alarm over a spreading cholera outbreak that has killed dozens in the war-torn country and called for urgent international assistance.
Yemen is witnessing a devastating war between the Iranian-backed Huthi rebels and the Saudi-supported government, and less than half of the country’s health facilities are functioning two years into the conflict.
The Huthi-run health ministry said cases of cholera had worsened and that it was “unable to contain this disaster,” in a statement carried overnight by the rebels’ Saba news agency.
It launched an appeal for help from international humanitarian organizations to deal with the crisis.
Hafid bin Salem Mohammed, the rebel health minister, said the “scale of the disease is beyond the capacity” of his department, in a statement on Huthi-run Al-Masira television.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Sunday that the cholera outbreak had killed 115 people and left 8,500 ill between April 27 and Saturday.
The state of emergency is an “indication of how serious this crisis is,” United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Yemen Jamie McGoldrick told reporters yesterday.
“This rapid outbreak of cholera is just another dire manifestation of the humanitarian catastrophe that faces this country,” he said.
“These numbers will increase in the weeks and months ahead,” he warned.
France said it was “preoccupied by the rapid spread” of cholera, pledging 2 million euros (US$2.2 million) to support programs “responding to the extremely urgent needs” in Yemen, mainly in the health sector.
“It is more than ever urgent to find a political solution in Yemen, the only way possible to end the suffering of the population,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement.
On Sunday, relief agencies warned of a catastrophic humanitarian situation and urged hygiene precautions.
Doctors Without Borders expressed fears that health authorities alone would not be able to deal with the outbreak.
It called on international organizations to “scale up their assistance urgently to limit the spread of the outbreak and anticipate potential other ones.”
This is the second outbreak of cholera, a bacterial infection contracted through ingesting contaminated food or water, in less than a year in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country.
At the Sabaeen Hospital in Sanaa, deputy director Nabeel al-Najjar said the medical facility was struggling to cope.
The hospital, which lacks medicines, is receiving between 150 to 200 patients with cholera symptoms a day, he said.
Twenty-five districts in 11 governorates have been affected in the past four weeks, McGoldrick said, with more than 50 other districts at risk.
The World Health Organization now classifies Yemen as one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in the world alongside Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria and Iraq.
The United Nations has warned 17 million people — equivalent to two-thirds of the population — are at imminent risk of famine in Yemen.
More than 8,000 people have been killed since the Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened to support Yemen’s government in March 2015, the WHO said.
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