Cholera outbreak in Yemen has claimed 1,500 lives and sickened about 246,000 people since April, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.
WHO representative in Yemen Nevio Zagaria at a news conference in Sanaa yesterday said the epidemic has hit 21 provinces out of Yemen’s 22 provinces, stressing that the number of suspected cholera cases has multiplied tenfold in the last two months.
Unicef’s acting representative Sherin Varkey, for his part, said a quarter of the fatalities from the outbreak were children.
The death toll rose from 1,300 as announced two weeks ago by WHO, which put the number of suspected cases at over 200,000 at the time and added that number is growing by 5,000 a day.
Cholera is a bacterial infection which is contracted through contaminated food or water.
Nevio Zagaria, WHO country representative for Yemen, speaks during a press conference in Sanaa yesterday, about the cholera outbreak in the country.
