As many as 1,170 people have died because of cholera in Yemen this year, making it the world’s largest outbreak of the disease, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday. It also warned that a quarter of a million people could be affected by the end of 2017.
Yemen has almost 2,000 suspected cases of the disease everyday. “The number of suspected cholera cases is rising,” said WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic, according to PTI. Between April 27 and June 20, WHO has registered more than 1,70,000 suspected cholera cases in 20 governorates across Yemen.
Jasarevic also pointed out that the ongoing war and its accompanying devastation in the region have made fighting the disease even more difficult. The conflict has ruined the country’s infrastructure with more than half of its medical facilities unavailable.
The organisation has, so far, given more than 2,20,000 bags of intravenous fluids, and set up 144 diarrhoea treatment centres, 206 oral rehydration therapy corners, and 2,000 beds. “It is difficult in a situation where a country has a health system that is collapsing”, Jasarevic said.
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