Oxfam has warned that Yemen's cholera epidemic will likely get worse with the impending rainy season. The number of people with the disease is already the "largest ever recorded in any country in a single year."
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
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International aid organization Oxfam projected Friday that the number of cholera cases in Yemen could rise to more than 600,000.
The announcement comes after the World Health Organization announced that almost 370,000 suspected cases of cholera and 1,828 deaths have been reported since the outbreak began in April. That's higher than the previous annual record of 340,311 in Haiti in 2011.
"It is quite frankly staggering that in just three months more people in Yemen have contracted cholera than any country has suffered in a single year since modern records began," Nigel Timmins, the charity's humanitarian director who has just returned from a fact finding mission to Yemen, said in a statement.
"Cholera has spread unchecked in a country already on its knees after two years of war and which is teetering on the brink of famine," he said.
Yemen's health system has collapsed since the war intensified in 2015Image: Picture alliance/dpa/H. Al-Ansi
Decline in cases?
This week the WHO reported a dip in suspected cases over the past two weeks in some of the worst hit areas, including the capital Sanaa, but said it was too early to tell if it was a trend because data is still being analyzed.
Both the UN's health body and Oxfam warn the rainy season between July and September could see the disease spread faster via water contaminated with faeces.
Yemen: Girl recovers from malnutrition
In war-torn Yemen, 18-year-old Saida suffered from malnutrition for years. These photos document her slow recovery.
Image: Reuters/K. Abdullah
Alarming evidence of misery in Yemen
This image of 18-year-old Saida Ahmad Baghili, sitting on her bed at Al-Thawra in the Red Sea Port city of Hodeida shows her malnourished, emaciated body. It has come to stand for the worsening humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
Saida smiles - after weeks of treatment
Saida was transferred to a hospital in the capital, Sanaa. After weeks of hospital care, she can at least smile, though she can still barely speak and continues to find eating difficult at times. Her father is still worried: "She doesn't eat anything except liquid medical food. She used to drink juice and milk with bananas but now she can't. We don't know when she'll recover."
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
A lifelong condition
Doctors believe her condition has damaged her throat. When her family first brought Saida to a hospital, she could barely keep her eyes open or stand. "We admitted Saida to find out the cause of her inability to eat," her doctor said. "Her health issue remains chronic and her bones remain fragile due to stunted growth. In all likelihood, they will never return to normal."
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
Finally gaining weight
Her father, Ahmed, who is staying nearby to be with his daughter, said his daughter's weight has reached 16 kilograms (35 pounds), five kilos more than when she was first admitted to hospital. He said Saida's situation was alarming before the war, which began in March 2015. Yemen's crisis including widespread hunger was brought on by decades of poverty and internal strife.
Image: Reuters/K. Abdullah
Food insecurity
About half of Yemen's 28 million people are "food insecure," according to the United Nations, and 7 million of them do not now where they will get their next meal. The US-based Famine Early Warning Systems Network, run by the US Agency for International Development, estimated that a quarter of all Yemenis are probably in a food security "emergency" - one stage before "catastrophe" or famine.
Image: Reuters/K. Abdullah
Saida out of the hospital
The war has pushed the Arab world's poorest nation to the brink of famine and displaced over three million people. Areas worst affected by the conflict are parts of Taiz province and southern coastal areas of the Hodeida province, where Saida is from.
Image: Reuters/K. Abdullah
One reason for undersupply
Restrictions imposed on the entry of ships after the start of the war in Yemen had raised insurance premiums and cut the number of vessels entering the port by more than half. About a million tons of food supplies entered through Hodeida in 2015, a third as much as in 2014.
Image: Reuters/F. Al Nassar
Yemeni women call attention to disaster
Yemeni women are holding banners depicting suffering, malnourished children. They protest against a UN roadmap for the Yemen conflict, which is calling for naming a new vice president after the withdrawal of the Houthi rebels from Sanaa. Since the beginning of the war, at least 10,000 people have been killed in Yemen.
Image: picture alliance/Yahya Arhab/E
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"Yemen's cholera outbreak is far from being controlled, the rainy season has just started and may increase the paths of transmission," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told reporters in Geneva on Friday, adding that 5,000 Yemenis fall ill with acute diarrhea or cholera every day.
Widespread malnutrition
The conflict in Yemen has escalated dramatically since March 2015, when a Saudi-led coalition backing the internationally-recognized government launched a bombing campaign against Houthi rebels.
The war has left 10,000 people dead, displaced 3 million and pushed the Arabian Peninsula to the brink of famine, the United Nations says. Half of the country's health facilities have shut down, hampering Yemenis' access to vital services. The closure of the country's main ports and airports has also prevented aid agencies from distributing supplies.
