cholera

In response to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition's announcement to reopen Hodeidah port and Sanaa airport to humanitarian assistance, Oxfam says this is an empty gesture while millions of Yemenis sees their lives threatened by the two-week blockade on the country. 

Many supermarket shelves in northern Haiti are now empty and many people in coastal areas are being evacuated inland to schools and public buildings in preparation for the worst of Hurricane Irma today and tomorrow. Oxfam’s Tania Escamilla is in Cap Haitien with a 27-person team that is assisting the evacuation. 

Yemenis, already on the tipping point after more than two years of war, are now being forced to choose between treating cholera and putting food on the table, said Oxfam in a new report.

Since the end of April 2017, Yemen has been experiencing its worst recorded outbreak of suspected cholera in a single year. By mid-August, more than 500,000 cases were recorded. Significant and urgent scale up in all areas of intervention is needed.

Massive aid effort and cease-fire needed as rainy season approaches.

The number of people with cholera in Yemen is now the largest ever recorded in any country in a single year, Oxfam said today. At over 350,000 suspected cholera cases in just three months since the outbreak started, it is now already the largest number of cases in a year, topping the previous annual record of 340,311 in Haiti in 2011. 

Four years of war have plunged Yemen into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and put the country at risk of famine. Now it is at the mercy of a deadly and rapidly spreading cholera epidemic, with nearly 1 million suspected cases. Help us stop the spread now.

Yemen’s cholera outbreak could spread quickly to thousands more people with the new rainy season likely to begin in the coming days.

The agency is calling for a massive aid effort and an immediate ceasefire to allow health and aid workers tackle the cholera outbreak.

Oxfam is calling for an immediate ceasefire to allow health and aid workers tackle a runaway cholera epidemic that threatens the lives of thousands of people in the coming months.

A growing cholera crisis in Yemen that has already killed more than 120 people with 11,000 suspected cases could deteriorate rapidly unless donor governments immediately send aid they pledged last month to help the struggling country, Oxfam warned today.