Syria is facing a worrying cholera outbreak. According to United Nations data, 900 people have already been affected by the infectious disease and eight have died since the outbreak started three weeks ago. UN officials speak of a “serious threat” to the entire region.
Most cases have occurred in the northern city of Aleppo and the northeastern town of Deir el-Zour. The disease is likely to have spread as a result of people drinking contaminated water from the Euphrates River. Cholera may also have developed through crops from fields sprayed with polluted water from the Euphrates.
It also plays a role that the river is unusually low due to prolonged lack of rainfall, extremely high temperatures and the damming of the river upstream in Turkey.
Sewage damaged
As a result of the Syrian civil war, a large part of the sewage system in the country has also been damaged, especially in Aleppo, where there has been heavy fighting for a long time and reconstruction is only starting slowly. In these circumstances, cholera, caused by a bacterium, can spread rapidly.
“This is the first confirmed cholera outbreak in Syria in recent years,” Richard Brennan, director of the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO), told Reuters news agency. “The geographic distribution is a cause for concern, so we need to act quickly.”
Authorities have also warned hospitals in the capital Damascus to be aware of the cholera outbreak. Brennan called on foreign donors to quickly provide additional funds as the WHO is already using additional resources to fight cholera outbreaks in Pakistan caused by the immense flooding there.
Also read: Ten years of war in Syria: ‘Every day is worse than the one before’‘
#Syria #hit #cholera #outbreak