Cholera cases in war-ravaged Yemen soar past half-million: WHO

New Delhi: As per the World Health Organisation, cholera cases have taken a leap in war-ravaged Yemen.

Cholera is believed to have affected more than 500,000 people and killed nearly 2,000 since late April, WHO said.

A full 503,484 suspected cases and 1,975 deaths are attributable to the outbreak that erupted last than four months ago in the war-ravaged country, an overview showed.

The UN health agency said the speed at which the deadly waterborne disease was spreading had slowed significantly since early July, but warned that it was still affecting an estimated 5,000 people each day.
The collapse of Yemen`s infrastructure after more than two years of war between the Saudi-backed government and Shiite rebels who control the capital Sanaa has allowed the country`s cholera epidemic to swell to the largest in the world.

WHO warned that the disease had spread rapidly due to deteriorating hygiene and sanitation conditions, with millions of people cut off from clean water across the country.

"Yemen`s health workers are operating in impossible conditions," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

"Thousands of people are sick, but there are not enough hospitals, not enough medicines, not enough clean water," he said, also lamenting that many of the doctors and nurses needed to rein in the outbreak had not been paid for nearly a year.

"They must be paid their wages so that they can continue to save lives," he said.

(With AFP inputs)