VIENNA: Cholera cases in Yemen are expected to at least double by the end of 2017 to more than 600,000, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Sunday, as the charity’s president visited the war-ravaged country to assess the worsening crisis.
“The great tragedy is that this cholera outbreak is a preventable, man-made humanitarian catastrophe,” said ICRC President Peter Maurer.
“It is a direct consequence of a conflict that has devastated civilian infrastructure and brought the whole health system to its knees,” he added in a statement.
Yemen’s health crisis has been compounded by an ongoing conflict between President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, backed by Saudi Arabia and fellow allies, and rebels.
The fighting, which started in 2014 and intensified in March 2015,when the rebels advanced on Hadi’s southern power seat of Aden, has devastated the country’s infrastructure.
The ICRC said less than 45 per cent of the country’s medical facilities are operational, while others are only partially functioning.
Cholera, which is contracted through contaminated water and causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting, is easily treatable and preventable. But the disease can kill within hours if left untreated.
According to the World Health Organization, around 3,200 people have been infected in the past three months and more than 1,800 have died.
Other infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever are also going untreated due to a lack of resources, the ICRC warned.
Meanwhile, the head of anti-poverty NGO CARE International denounced the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, which is also suffering from a cholera epidemic, as “an absolute shame on humanity”.
The conflict in Yemen has escalated dramatically since March 2015, when Saudi-led forces launched a military operation in support of the government against the rebels.
“We are now in the 21st century and the current situation is an absolute shame on humanity,” Wolfgang Jamann told reporters after a five-day visit to the country.
“Thousands of civilians have died since the start of the conflict and millions more have been displaced inside the country,” he told a news conference.
Jamann said “60 per cent of the country is food insecure and over half the population is unable (to access) safe drinking water”.
“Many areas in Yemen are just one step away from a famine situation,” he said, and urged the international community to “end the suffering”.
The war in Yemen has caused more than 8,000 deaths — mostly of civilians — since the coalition intervened, according to the WHO. More than 44,500 people are estimated to have been wounded.
The situation in the country of some 27 million has been worsened by a massive outbreak of the bacterial infection cholera.
Last Friday, the WHO said the number of suspected cholera infections in Yemen had risen to nearly 370,000, as of July 19. It said 1,828 people have died in the outbreak since it erupted in late April. — Agencies
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