The number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen has exceeded 200,000, making it the worst cholera outbreak in the world, according to the United Nations.
More than 1,300 people have now died from the outbreak, one quarter of them children, Unicef executive director Anthony Lake and World Health Organisation director general Margaret Chan said in a joint statement on Saturday. Suspected cases are increasing at an average of 5,000 a day.
“In just two months, cholera has spread to almost every governorate of this war-torn country,” Mr Lake and Ms Chan said. “Collapsing health, water and sanitation systems have cut off 14.5 million people from regular access to clean water and sanitation, increasing the ability of the disease to spread.”
“Rising rates of malnutrition have weakened children’s health and made them more vulnerable to disease.”
The statement came a day after the UN said the cholera outbreak would probably have infected more than 300,000 people by September.
Mr Lake and Ms Chan said Unicef and WHO were doing everything possible to increase prevention and treatment methods, but called on the authorities in Yemen to do more.
“An estimated 30,000 dedicated local health workers who play the largest role in ending this outbreak have not been paid their salaries for nearly 10 months,” they said.
“We urge all authorities inside the country to pay these salaries and, above all, we call on all parties to end this devastating conflict.”
Forces loyal to Yemeni president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi – backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition – have been fighting Iran-supported Houthi rebels for more than two years.
On Friday last week, Saudi Arabia announced it was contributing US$66.7 million (Dh245m) towards the anti-cholera programme in Yemen run by Unicef and WHO.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
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'Young girls thinking of big ideas'
Words come easy for aspiring writer Afra Al Muhairb. The business side of books, on the other hand, is entirely foreign to the 16-year-old Emirati. So, she followed her father’s advice and enroled in the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s summer entrepreneurship course at Abu Dhabi University hoping to pick up a few new skills.
“Most of us have this dream of opening a business,” said Afra, referring to her peers are “young girls thinking of big ideas.”
In the three-week class, pupils are challenged to come up with a business and develop an operational and marketing plan to support their idea. But, the learning goes far beyond sales and branding, said teacher Sonia Elhaj.
“It’s not only about starting up a business, it’s all the meta skills that goes with it -- building self confidence, communication,” said Ms Elhaj. “It’s a way to coach them and to harness ideas and to allow them to be creative. They are really hungry to do this and be heard. They are so happy to be actually doing something, to be engaged in creating something new, not only sitting and listening and getting new information and new knowledge. Now they are applying that knowledge.”
Afra’s team decided to focus their business idea on a restaurant modelled after the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each level would have a different international cuisine and all the meat would be halal. The pupils thought of this after discussing a common problem they face when travelling abroad.
“Sometimes we find the struggle of finding halal food, so we just eat fish and cheese, so it’s hard for us to spend 20 days with fish and cheese,” said Afra. “So we made this tower so every person who comes – from Africa, from America – they will find the right food to eat.”
rpennington@thenational.ae
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