Yemen : the cholera has infected more than half a million people

Hani Mohammed/AP/SIPA

Published the 15.08.2017 at 14: 48

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choléraépidémieYémen

Yemen is facing one of the worst cholera epidemics in its history. The figures relating to the humanitarian crisis in a country at war give the dizzy. The number of cholera cases continues to explode and has exceeded half a million, announced Monday the World Organization of the Qanté (WHO). According to the un agency, 503 484 suspected cases and 1 975 deaths due to cholera have been recorded since the end of April.

More than a quarter of people dead and more than 41 % of the patients are children, said the WHO. The only encouraging news : the speed at which the epidemic spreads is ” clearly slowed since the start of July “. However, 5 000 people are infected each day.

No access to care

Yemen has been torn by a civil war. The conflict complicates the supply of drugs and the arrival of international humanitarian aid. After a first outbreak last year, the cholera re-emerged in this country, one of the poorest in the world.

Millions of Yemenis are deprived of drinking water, which facilitates the spread of the epidemic. “The health workers in Yemen are working in impossible conditions, said the head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a press release. Thousands of people are sick, but there are not enough hospitals, medicines, safe drinking water, ” he said, adding that many doctors and nurses had not been paid for nearly a year.

According to the WHO, more than 99 % of the people infected by cholera can survive if they have access to health services. But more than 15 million Yemenis have no access to basic health care. Tedros has called on the parties to the conflict, which has already made more than 8300 deaths from march 2015, to seek urgently a political solution. “The Yemeni people can no longer tolerate this situation any longer. They need peace to rebuild their lives and their country “, has he hammered.