Since the end of April 2017, a cholera epidemic has been raging in Yemen, a country located in the south of the Arabian Peninsula (below Saudi Arabia) and which has almost 27 million inhabitants. In the space of three weeks, the disease has killed 242 people and 23,425 suspected cases remain under the surveillance of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Health authorities expect 250,000 new cases over the next 6 months: just for Thursday, May 18, 2017, 3,460 new suspected cases were listed and 20 additional deaths were recorded.
A toxin that causes severe dehydration
According to the Institut Pasteur, cholera is an epidemic diarrheal disease caused by a bacterium of the species vibrio cholerae: this is easily transmitted through the absorption by the mouth of contaminated water or food. Once in the intestine, the pathogens secrete a toxin, responsible for the significant dehydration that characterizes the infection – a person affected by cholera can lose up to 15 liters of water per day. In the absence of treatment, death occurs in 1 to 3 days. In 2009, 221,226 cases, including 4,946 fatalities, were declared to the World Health Organization by 45 countries.
In Yemen, “the speed of resurgence of this cholera epidemic is unprecedented,” said the WHO representative. The authorities of Sanaa (the capital of Yemen) have declared a state of emergency in the face of the multiplication of cholera cases; they appealed for international help. The cases of cholera recorded exceed the “usual averages”: the health system in the capital is “unable to contain this disaster”.
This epidemic occurs in a context of civil war: today, 19 million people (about two thirds of the population) in Yemen are in need of humanitarian aid. And local sanitation infrastructure – sewers, for example – is mostly unusable.
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