Yemen cholera outbreak hits 300.000 people in 10 weeks

The International Committee of the Red Cross claims the epidemic has continued to “spiral out of control”.

After two years of conflict between the government and the Houti movement, Yemen’s infrastructure is collapsing. With water and sanitation services virtually destroyed, health services now face what the World Health Organization has labelled as “the worst cholera outbreak in the world”.

This past June, the World Health Organization counted 200.000 suspected cases of cholera in the Arab country. In just over two weeks, according to the note published by BBC, another 100.000 people have been infected with the bacteria: that’s around 7000 new cases on a daily basis, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Although most of the patients infected with the Vibro Cholerae bacteria have either mild symptoms or none at all, in other cases the disease “can kill within hours if left untreated”.

You can read the whole note, as published by the BBC, here.