WHO launches cholera vaccine drive in Yemen

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday it was helping Yemeni authorities with a second round of vaccination against cholera in three hard-hit districts, as cases surged across the war-ravaged country.

More than 2,500 people have died of the waterborne infection since the worst cholera outbreak in Yemen’s history began in April 2017, while nearly one million more suspected cases have been reported across the country.

Children under the age of five make up nearly a third of all suspected cases. Yemen’s cholera epidemic had seemed to lull for a while, but WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic warned of a new escalation.

"We have been seeing the number of cholera cases increasing in Yemen since June, and this increase has been even more important in the last three weeks," he told reporters in Geneva. During the first eight months of the year, Yemen registered nearly 155,000 suspected cholera cases, including 197 deaths.

But in the last week of August alone, 9,425 suspected cholera cases were recorded across the country, and just a week later, the number of suspected cases recorded soared to 11,478, WHO said.