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Another wave of cholera could strike Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition blockade has cut off fuel for hospitals, water pumps and vital aid supplies for starving children, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday.
Dr. Nevio Zagaria, WHO country representative in Yemen, told Reuters that 16 percent of Yemeni children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition, including 5.2 percent with a severe form that is life-threatening, and the problem is increasing.
Some 960,000 suspected cases of cholera and 2,219 deaths have been reported since the epidemic began in April, WHO figures show.
Children account for nearly a third of infections of the waterborne disease, spread by food or water contaminated with human feces, that causes acute diarrhea and dehydration and can kill within hours if untreated.
Although the number of new cases has dropped for 11 straight weeks, 35 districts in Yemen are still reporting cholera with “high attack rates” in communities, Zagaria said.
A deteriorating economic situation and lack of safe drinking water, due to water sewage systems in many cities lacking fuel for the pumps, have compounded the humanitarian crisis, he said.
“This is a perfect mix to have a new explosion of a cholera epidemic at the beginning of the rainy season in March of next year,” Zagaria said.
A campaign of oral cholera vaccination — initially planned last July during an acute phase and then abandoned by authorities — is now under reconsideration but as a preventive action next year, he said.
The United Nations appealed on Friday to the coalition to fully lift its blockade of Yemen, which was partially eased last week to let aid into Hodeidah and Salif, and UN flights into Sanaa.
The US-backed military coalition closed air, land and sea access on November 6.
Aid shipments cover only a fraction of Yemen’s needs, since almost all food, fuel and medicine are commercially imported.