Over 200,000 cholera cases in Yemen

GENEVA: The cholera outbreak in war-torn Yemen is spreading rapidly, UN agencies reported on Saturday as the number of suspected cases climbed above 200,000.

“We are now facing the worst cholera outbreak in the world,” UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) chief Anthony Lake and World Health Organization (WHO) chief Margaret Chan said in a joint statement.

Every day there are 5,000 new cases, and the disease has reached nearly every governorate of the country, they said. More than 1,300 people have already died from cholera, a quarter of them children.

“This deadly cholera outbreak is the direct consequence of two years of heavy conflict,” the UN agency chiefs said, pointing to destroyed health, water and sanitation systems.