Live Update arrow right icon From the Liveblog of Wednesday, October 16, 2024

WHO warns risk of cholera outbreak ‘very high’ in Lebanon, urges Israel to ensure polio vaccine drive in Gaza

By AFP 16 October 2024, 8:02 pm 12 Edit
This picture taken from Lebanon's southern city of Tyre shows a smoke plume erupting following an Israeli airstrike on the village of Tayrdebba on October 16, 2024. (Kawnat HAJU / AFP)
This picture taken from Lebanon's southern city of Tyre shows a smoke plume erupting following an Israeli airstrike on the village of Tayrdebba on October 16, 2024. (Kawnat HAJU / AFP)

GENEVA, Switzerland — The risk of cholera spreading in Lebanon is “very high,” the World Health Organization warns after a case of the acute and potentially deadly diarrhoeal infection was detected in the conflict-hit country.

The WHO highlights the risk of cholera spreading among hundreds of thousands of people displaced since Israel escalated an air campaign against Hezbollah and launched a ground offensive intended to push the group back from its northern border with Lebanon.

“If the cholera outbreak … spreads to the new displaced people, it might spread very fast,” Abdinasir Abubakar, WHO’s representative in Lebanon, tells reporters in an online news conference.

Lebanon’s health ministry said a cholera case had been confirmed in a Lebanese national who went to hospital on Monday suffering from watery diarrhea and dehydration.

The patient, from Ammouniyeh in northern Lebanon, had no history of travel, the ministry said.

Lebanon suffered its first cholera outbreak in 30 years between 2022 and 2023, mainly in the north of the country.

The WHO also urges Israel to ensure the necessary conditions to finish the job of vaccinating Gaza’s children against polio, after reaching more than 150,000 with the required second dose.

Despite continuing Israeli military operations in some areas of the Palestinian territory, the second round of a polio vaccination campaign, aiming to reach more than 590,000 children under the age of 10, got underway on Monday.

“The total number of children who received a second dose of polio vaccine in central Gaza after two days of vaccination is 156,943,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says on X.

“The vaccination continues today. At the same time, 128,121 children received vitamin A supplements.

“We call for the humanitarian pauses to continue to be respected. We call for a ceasefire and peace,” he says.

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