Amman, September 27 (BNA) Syria said that 29 people have died from cholera in what the United Nations described as the worst outbreak of the disease in the war-torn country in years.
The Syrian Ministry of Health said in a statement that rapid assessment tests confirmed 338 cases of infection since the outbreak of the disease was recorded last month, and the bulk of the deaths and cases were in the northern Aleppo governorate.
It said 230 cases were in Aleppo Governorate, where 25 people have been confirmed dead. The rest spread throughout Syria.
The United Nations said this month that the outbreak was believed to be linked to crop irrigation using polluted water and people drinking unsafe water from the Euphrates River, which divides Syria from north to east. Read more
The highly contagious disease has also spread to Kurdish-controlled areas of the country and opposition areas in north and northwest Syria, medical officials said, where millions have been displaced by the decade-old conflict.
The US-based International Rescue Committee, which operates in the northern region, said suspected cholera cases had risen to 2,092 in northeastern Syria, adding that there were fears of a significant under-reporting of cases.
Western NGOs say access to safe drinking water is a major challenge in Syria, which has 40% less drinking water than it was before the conflict broke out after widespread destruction of the national water infrastructure.
Water scarcity is exacerbated by climate change.
The Syrian Civil Defense, rescue workers working in opposition areas, said on Monday that paramedics reported the first three cases of cholera in the overcrowded Kafr Losin camps near the border with Turkey.
“This is a dangerous development for the lives of civilians, with the disease beginning to spread rapidly under poor sanitary conditions, especially in the camps,” the Western-backed group said in a statement.
The United Nations has warned of a high death rate if cholera spreads in the densely populated sector, where tens of thousands of displaced Syrians live in squalid conditions with limited supplies of safe water and sanitation.
The World Health Organization has already begun sending urgent shipments of medical supplies and chlorine tablets to purify water, officials said.
Before the recent cholera outbreak, the water crisis caused an increase in problems such as diarrhoea, malnutrition and skin diseases, the World Health Organization said.