Local Editor
Save the Children warned that the number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen since the start of this year has more than doubled the number during the same period in 2018.
“Cholera is once again raging in many parts of the country, threatening children and families already brutalized by years of conflict: 100,000 children have been infected in less than four months of 2019,” Save the Children’s Country Director in Yemen Tamer Kirolos said Thursday.
According to the charity, children account for close to half (45%) of all the new cases. Altogether there were 236,550 cases of suspected cholera between 1st January and 19th April 2019. Of these, 105,384 were in children under 15. Almost half these cases were recorded in the last month alone - nine times as many as in the same time period last year.
“This surge is yet more evidence that while the war rages there will be no end to the suffering of Yemen’s children. Gains made against the disease in 2018 have unravelled in the face of relentless violence. Yet more people have been forced to flee their homes. Hunger and malnutrition are rampant. Vital health and sanitation services have been debilitated,” Kirolos stressed. “All parties should implement the Stockholm Agreement in good faith and return to the negotiating table to agree to a nationwide ceasefire and political settlement to finally end the conflict.”
Without treatment, cholera can kill within hours. Malnourished children have substantially reduced immune systems and are at least three times more likely to die if they contract cholera. Diarrhoeal diseases like cholera are also themselves a major cause of malnutrition.
Two million children under the age of five will need treatment for acute malnutrition this year, according to the United Nations.
Source: Yemenwatch.net
