Yemen: cholera killing one person an hour

Written by David Fletcher 09 Jun 2017
Yemen: cholera killing one person an hour

Unicef reports that cholera cases in Yemen could quadruple in the next month to 300,000. A runaway epidemic is killing someone nearly every hour and threatening the lives of thousands, says Oxfam. There is an urgent call going out for massive aid efforts and an immediate ceasefire to allow health and aid workers to tackle the outbreak. The World Health Organisation said that between 27 April and 3 June, 676 people died and over 86,000 were suspected of having the disease. Yemen’s neglected medical reporting system and the widespread nature of the epidemic mean that these figures are likely to be under-reporting the full scale of the crisis. The crisis follows two years of war which have decimated water and sanitation systems, restricted imports, and left millions one step away from famine.

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