Cholera in Yemen

Cholera is a highly contagious bacterial infection spread through contaminated food or water.

A cholera outbreak of more than 100,000 cases has erupted since the end of April, in war-ravaged Yemen, across 19 of the country's 21 governorates, killing nearly 800 people, in just over a month, the World Health Organization said.

A cholera outbreak of more than 100,000 cases has erupted in war-ravaged Yemen, killing nearly 800 people, in just over a month, the World Health Organization said. Oxfam also voiced alarm at what it described as "a runaway cholera epidemic" in Yemen, pointing out that the disease is currently killing nearly one person every hour.

Reining in the disease is particularly complicated in Yemen, where two years of devastating war between the Huthis and government forces backed by a Saudi-led Arab military coalition has left more than half the country's medical facilities out of service.

"Yemen is on the edge of an abyss. Lives hang in the balance," Sajjad Mohammed Sajid, Oxfam's Yemen country director, said in a statement. "Cholera is simple to treat and prevent but while the fighting continues the task is made doubly difficult," he said, insisting that "a massive aid effort is needed now."