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ICRC: Yemen Cholera Cases Pass 300,000 Mark | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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A girl is treated for suspected cholera infection at a hospital in Sana’a, Yemen, Saturday, Jul. 1, 2017. AP Photo/Hani Mohammed


A 10-week cholera epidemic has now infected more than 300,000 people in Yemen, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday.

“Disturbing. We’re at 300k+ suspected cases with ~7k new cases/day,” ICRC regional director Robert Mardini said in a tweet.

The World Health Organization has said there were 297,438 suspected cases and 1,706 deaths by July 7, but it did not publish a daily update on Sunday, when the 300,000 mark looked set to be reached.

A WHO spokesman said the figures were still being analyzed by Yemen’s health ministry.

Although the daily growth rate in the overall number of cases has halved to just over 2 percent in recent weeks and the spread of the disease has slowed in the worst-hit regions, outbreaks in other areas have grown rapidly.

Early in the outbreak, the WHO said there could be 300,000 cases within six months, but on June 27 it said the epidemic may have reached the halfway mark at 218,800 cases.

However, since then, the daily number of new cases has risen from an average of about 6,500 to about 7,200, according to a Reuters analysis of WHO data.