Suspected cholera cases in Yemen have tripled in the past three weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned, as civilians have fled renewed fighting and sought safety in unsanitary camps. Ramped up combat, which has pushed more than 200,000 people to flee their homes, the WHO added in a report on Tuesday, driving suspected cases from 217 in the week of September 6-12 to 647 in the week of September 27 to October 3. Five governorates hosting large numbers of displaced people in the southwest – Abyan, Lahij, al-Dhalea, Taiz and Aden – account for 92 percent of reported cases, they reported.
The disease has also reached remote displacement camps in Hadramout in the country’s east that are particularly difficult for medical teams to access. Cholera has ebbed and flowed for years as the conflict in Yemen has continued. In 2024, the WHO warned that the country was facing the “highest burden” of a global cholera outbreak.
In 2017, a wave of the disease infected hundreds of thousands and killed at least 2,000. Yemen was already suffering one of the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis” and has seen an escalation of circumstances since fighting reignited between the Houthis – an armed group known as Ansar Allah (Arabic for Supporters of God), and the internationally recognised Yemeni government. Cholera is an acute intestinal infection that spreads through food and water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, often from faeces.
It causes severe diarrhoea, vomiting and muscle cramps. Contracting the illness can be deadly when not treated with oral rehydration or antibiotics for more severe cases. The Geneva-based WHO said it had only secured $3.78m of the $31m needed for its 90-day emergency response in Yemen.
The funding is intended to help expand disease surveillance in displacement sites, deploy rapid response teams, strengthen cholera treatment and improve infection prevention in health facilities and cholera treatment sites.
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