Yemen cholera caseload leaps, death toll rises
UN wants to shift $40m to Haiti cholera fund
GENEVA, May 24, (Agencies): The number of cholera cases in Yemen has leapt, a World Health Organization document showed on Tuesday, with 35,217 suspected cases since April 27, when the outbreak began to spread rapidly.
That represents a 50 percent increase in the reported incidence compared with figures given last Friday by the WHO representative in the country, Nevio Zagaria, who said at that point there had been 23,425 cases since April 27.
A WHO epidemiology bulletin covering the period up to May 22 said 361 deaths had been reported, mainly in western governorates of Yemen. That is a rise of more than 100 since Friday, when Zagaria said 242 people had died.
The epidemic began in October and grew until December. It then dwindled but was never brought fully under control, and a new surge in cases began in April, worsened by the collapse of the economy and the health system.
The total number of cases reported since December stands at 61,000, the bulletin said. Zagaria said last week that the total could reach 300,000 in the next six months.
Caused by ingesting the Vibrio cholerae bacterium from water or food contaminated with faeces, cholera usually manifests itself with a sudden onset of acute watery diarrhoea and can kill within hours, although three-quarters of infected people show no symptoms.
The short incubation period means outbreaks can spread with explosive speed, especially in places without safe water and proper sanitation, according to the WHO.
Yemen has been ruined by two years of civil war, with 18.8 million people needing humanitarian aid, many of them on the brink of famine. Less than 45 percent of the country’s health facilities are fully functional.
Also: UNITED NATIONS:
The United Nations is proposing that $40.5 million from the unspent budget of the UN mission in Haiti be poured into a special fund to help its cholera victims, according to a report released Tuesday.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made the proposal to the UN General Assembly to address a major shortfall in the $400 million needed to help Haiti recover from the epidemic.
Cholera was introduced by infected Nepalese UN peacekeepers who were sent to Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake. More than 9,500 people have died of the disease.
The $40.5 million would be drawn from unspent funds from the UN peacekeeping mission’s budget for 2015-2016 and would provide a major boost to the effort to help Haiti recover from the outbreak.
Only seven countries have so far contributed to the fund — Chile, France, India, Liechtenstein, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Britain — for a total of $2.67 million.
Canada and Japan have separately granted $8.5 million to help Haiti.
NEW YORK:
US state laws used to prosecute pregnant women who take drugs are stopping them seeking help from health services and are a violation of their rights, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
The human rights group sounded the alarm in a report about the increasing practice of charging pregnant women addicted to drugs with endangering their own foetus.
It said this had undermined efforts in recent years to treat the addiction of possibly thousands of women. There is no figure on the number of women charged with a crime related to their pregnancy, the report said, but measures to crack down on those who take drugs have been proliferating.
“Drug dependence is a health issue but now authorities are punishing people for their condition, treating it solely as a crime,” the report’s author Carrie Eisert said in a phone interview.
“These harsh and discriminatory laws are making pregnancy more dangerous and trampling on human rights in the process.”
Amnesty said 38 of 50 US states — from Mississippi to South Carolina — have laws considering unborn babies as potential victims of a crime.