Suspected cholera cases in Yemen have tripled in three weeks as civilians fleeing renewed military conflict seek refuge in unsanitary displacement camps, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned in a report on Tuesday.
Escalating fighting has forced more than 200,000 people to flee their homes, pushing weekly suspected cholera cases from 217 between 6 and 12 September to 647 between 27 September and 3 October, reports Al Jazeera.
“Families fleeing conflict are now facing another threat from diseases that can be prevented and treated,” said Annette Heinzelmann, the UN agency’s emergency director for the region.
“Without urgent funding and unimpeded access to safe water, vaccination and essential health services, outbreaks could spread rapidly among already vulnerable communities,” she added.
Yemen has recorded 8,034 suspected cholera cases and 27 deaths so far this year, with a quarter of all suspected cases reported in the past four weeks alone.
Five governorates in southwestern Yemen hosting large numbers of displaced people — Abyan, Lahij, al-Dhalea, Taiz and Aden — account for 92 per cent of reported cases.
The disease has also spread to remote displacement camps in Hadramout in eastern Yemen, where medical personnel face severe access challenges.
The surge in cases comes as Yemen grapples with one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with food insecurity and disease worsening since hostilities between the Houthis and the government resumed in July, ending four years of fragile calm.
Cholera cases have fluctuated throughout the prolonged conflict. In 2024, the WHO warned that Yemen carried the “highest burden” of the global cholera outbreak. A major wave in 2017 infected hundreds of thousands of people and killed at least 2,000.
Cholera is an acute intestinal infection transmitted through food and water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, often originating from faeces. The disease causes severe diarrhoea, vomiting and muscle cramps. It can be fatal without treatment, which includes oral rehydration and, in severe cases, antibiotics.
The Geneva-based WHO said it had secured only $3.78 million of the $31 million needed for its 90-day emergency response in Yemen.
The requested funding would support expanded disease surveillance in displacement sites, the deployment of rapid response teams, stronger cholera treatment facilities and improved infection prevention in health facilities and treatment sites.
