Cholera cases in Yemen are surging as conflict intensifies, with 8,034 suspected cases and 27 deaths reported so far this year, according to a World Health Organization report released on Tuesday.
Cholera cases rise sharply
About a quarter of this year’s cases occurred in the last four weeks. Weekly suspected cases rose from 217 between September 6 and 12 to 647 between September 27 and October 3, roughly tripling in three weeks.
Five southwestern governorates, Abyan, Lahij, al-Dhalea, Taiz and Aden, account for 92% of reported cases and host large numbers of displaced people. The disease has also reached remote displacement camps in Hadramout, in the east, which medical teams find hard to access.
Funding gap
Annette Heinzelmann, the WHO’s emergency director for the region, said families fleeing conflict now face another threat from diseases that can be prevented and treated. She warned that without urgent funding and safe water, vaccination and essential health services, outbreaks could spread quickly.
The WHO has secured $3.78 million of the $31 million needed for its 90-day emergency response, which would expand surveillance in displacement sites, deploy rapid response teams and strengthen treatment. Renewed fighting between the Houthis and the government, which resumed in July, has displaced more than 200,000 people.
Cholera is an acute intestinal infection spread through food and water contaminated with Vibrio cholerae and causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting; untreated severe cases can be fatal.
