9 ms·

Yemen's cholera outbreak now the worst in history as millionth case looms

129 points by jansho 9y ago

Alex3917 9y ago
Has there been a recent uptick in Yemeni immigrants to the U.S.? Almost every day for the last few months I’ve seen Yemeni women in NYC wearing full niqabs, which I’d never seen here before this year.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  Considering that Yemen is one of the countries on Trump's travel-ban I don't see how that would be the case. Unless you meant recent but not completely recent.
- xxpor 9y ago
  Just wondering, how do you know they're Yemeni?
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    Because they're in Morris Park in the Bronx, which is little Yemen, or else in Pelham Parkway or the New York Botanical Garden, which are adjacent. Obviously they're not going to talk to me if I were to try to start a conversation, but it's a pretty safe guess, especially since Yemen is one of the main countries where women where niqab.
    - nindalf 9y ago
      > Yemen is the main country where women where niqab I'd be surprised if this were true. Would you have a source for this?
      - pmorici 9y ago
        There are many kinds of head coverings worn in that part of the world. Some are strongly associated with particular areas. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24118241 http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24118241
stuaxo 9y ago
Maybe the UK could give some % of the profits from selling to the Saudis to use on Yemen to help out.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  Maybe the Saudis could take all the money they're spending on weapons systems and donate it to professional NGOs that will solve this crisis. And then spend the next thousand years in penitence for their crimes against the people of Yemen.
peterfisher1 9y ago
Thank god the US is helping in Yemen by dropping bombs. Bombs cure diseases right?
navigator01 9y ago
I'm thankful every day that I live in a developed nation that spares from this kind of suffering. We take so much for granted in the developed world, the cynicism with which many of us view our own nations is naive and shortsighted.
- danharaj 9y ago
  Good chance that your developed nation is complicit or directly causing the conditions which made this cholera outbreak occur.
  - bertolo1988 9y ago
    Can you relate to Europe/US? I have no idea about what is going on on Yemen.
    - danharaj 9y ago
      US: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/the-united-states-is-complicit-in-the-destruction-of-yemen.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/the-united-stat...
    - k-ian 9y ago
      https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/yemen-saudi-arabia-famine-starvation-uk-arms-sales-a7636586.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/yemen-saudi-arabia-fami... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/31/opinion/columnists/yemen-famine-cholera.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/31/opinion/colum... https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/07/13/us-and-uk-acting-above-law-support-saudi-war-yemen https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/07/13/us-and-uk-acti... This crisis is entirely man-made. Saudis are crushing the Houthi rebels, indifferent to civlian starvation and disease.
    - boomboomsubban 9y ago
      US and the UK are assisting in the blockade of Yemen. The US, UK, Germany, France, China, Canada, and Al Quaeda are also providing arms sales and/or logistical support to the Saudi Arabia led coalition. Wikipedia source, but I'll gladly edit if you can disprove any of their sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian-led_intervention_in_Yemen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian-led_intervention...
Geekette 9y ago
I hit the link already mildly fuming at what I thought was clickbait because there's no way any place could be on track for one million cases of cholera in today's world. Quite heartbreaking to find out the headline is factual.
- coldcode 9y ago
  I wonder if Puerto Rico will begin showing Cholera outbreaks given it usually happens when sanitation systems fail or are destroyed.
k-ian 9y ago
Nice, Guardian. Only a passing mention of the civil war that has led to all this. The US and UK need to stop funding Saudi Arabia's military in order for this to stop happening in Yemen.
- Theodores 9y ago
  Completely. Really that Saudi Arabia effort of a 'country' needs to be boycotted for the human rights abuses and attitude towards women. However the big news in the UK yesterday was about BAE systems not able to keep everyone working and how hoped for orders from Saudi Arabia would save the day. So the share price of BAE systems and a few death industry Jobs matters more than cholera.
  - tdb7893 9y ago
    To be fair there are little day to day effects of the cholera epidemic for people in the UK and people generally prefer stories more immediately applicable to them
- dghughes 9y ago
  It was an article about cholera and how it affects people in Yemen. The Guardian has article right next to the cholera article titled 'Blame the Saudis for Yemen's cholera outbreak – they are targeting the people'.
- baursak 9y ago
  It's not just funding. It's supplying with weapons and bombs and intelligence.
- abalone 9y ago
  "Conflict" is mentioned four times in the article and it very clearly states: More than two years of fighting between the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels has crippled the country, causing widespread internal displacement, the collapse of the public health system, and leaving millions on the brink of famine. It does not, however, mention US/UK support for it. I agree it would be better to connect the dismay that this article engenders in the reader with outrage for our support for Saudi Arabia.
l5870uoo9y 9y ago
In a correspondence between the Austrian and the German military during World War I, the Austrian army described their situation as serious, but not disastrous. The German military replied that their situation was disastrous, but not serious. I know likewise that our situation is disastrous with an climate crisis, economic crisis, refugee crisis, political crisis and now the worst cholera crisis in history too, but the situation still isn't seriously enough command some sort of action.
jansho 9y ago
It’s just heartbreaking that the solution to cholera is so simple. Boiled water and salt/sugar solution. What on Earth is going on in Yemen :(
- sdiq 9y ago
  I suppose, you don't eat fruits or uncooked vegetables? Transmission isn't just limited to using dirty water.
- sbierwagen 9y ago
  Note that the headline is saying that the Yemen cholera epidemic is the worst in recorded history by number of cases. I assume rehydration salts are available and being used by the simple fact that the case fatality rate is fairly low-- 0.26%. Seasonal flu, by comparison, has a CFR of ~0.1%. Cholera before rehydration salts could be quite deadly-- as recently as 1974, Yemen reported a CFR of 16.67%: http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.177 http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.177 (Some of the numbers reported in that table are oddly high-- Vietnam reported a CFR of 100% in 1954, then 4.32% ten years later. They're not showing the denominator, so the hundred percent figure could be just from a handful of cases. Reminds me of Ebola, which was thought to be a death sentence from the awful CFRs reported from small outbreaks, but brought down to a "mere" 25% with aggressive treatment in Western hospitals.)
sdiq 9y ago
Ironical that the only help that Yemen - the poorest country in the region - can get from the neighbouring resource rich countries is bombs raining from the sky. Now, Saudi Arabia so hates the Shias that they would rather bomb Yemen to the 3rd century than have the Shias takeover. Yet, surprisingly, the long serving Ali Abdullah Saleh himself a Shia, was always friendly to the Saudis. So what changed?
- gpvos 9y ago
  Iran, a Shia country, is getting more powerful, which Saudi Arabia (probably rightly) sees as a threat to its regional dominance. In general, Shias and Sunnis got along quite peacefully until a few decades ago.
  - occultist_throw 9y ago
    And unfortunately, when it comes to religion, this is a flat-out religious war. But I mean, they're all Moslems, right? It has to do with who the rightful heir to Mohammed is. Is it Ali, or Abu Bakr? The answer to that question thus says which side of the interpretation of "Shia" or "Sunni" is. Long story short, it's not resolvable without a great deal of violence. Disagreements about succession are hardly ever peaceful.
    - gpvos 9y ago
      That does not address the question of what has changed causing SA to whack at everything Shia now, where it did not do so before.
      - lostlogin 9y ago
        The lack of repercussion from the world at large must be part of it.
      - wavefunction 9y ago
        The new Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia[0] is behind this and other 'efforts' in the Kingdom. [0]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/saudi-crown-prince-consolidate-power-arrests-clerics-mohammed-bin-salman https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/saudi-crown-pr...
abalone 9y ago
War is the biggest factor in this, but Yemen had a very serious problem with water scarcity to begin with. They were already on track to run out of water in their main city within a few years. Many were dependent on trucked-in water.[1] Now even that is impossible. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/apr/02/water-scarcity-yemen-conflict https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...
- jimmywanger 9y ago
  One of the biggest causes for the lack of water is the Yemeni use of khat (or qat), a stimulant that requires lots of water.[1] [1] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/yemen/2013-07-23/how-yemen-chewed-itself-dry https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/yemen/2013-07-23/how...
Synaesthesia 9y ago
It’s an atrocious war, being fought by the Saudis using cutting edge US weapons with US diplomatic support against a largely defenseless population.
modkodnd 9y ago
Real happy to see Saudi Arabia really earn their place as head of UN humans rights council!
kumarski 9y ago
This is the result of incompetency and inadequacy at multiple levels. Yemen ceased their vaccine campaign against cholera. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/cholera-vaccination-campaign-yemen-dropped https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/cholera-vaccination-...
- tinix 9y ago
  Cholera vaccines are not that effective... That's not the problem here.

129 points by jansho 9y ago

Has there been a recent uptick in Yemeni immigrants to the U.S.? Almost every day for the last few months I’ve seen Yemeni women in NYC wearing full niqabs, which I’d never seen here before this year.

wavefunction 9y ago
Considering that Yemen is one of the countries on Trump's travel-ban I don't see how that would be the case. Unless you meant recent but not completely recent.
xxpor 9y ago
Just wondering, how do you know they're Yemeni?
- Alex3917 9y ago
  Because they're in Morris Park in the Bronx, which is little Yemen, or else in Pelham Parkway or the New York Botanical Garden, which are adjacent. Obviously they're not going to talk to me if I were to try to start a conversation, but it's a pretty safe guess, especially since Yemen is one of the main countries where women where niqab.
  - nindalf 9y ago
    > Yemen is the main country where women where niqab I'd be surprised if this were true. Would you have a source for this?
    - pmorici 9y ago
      There are many kinds of head coverings worn in that part of the world. Some are strongly associated with particular areas. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24118241 http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24118241

stuaxo 9y ago

Maybe the UK could give some % of the profits from selling to the Saudis to use on Yemen to help out.

wavefunction 9y ago
Maybe the Saudis could take all the money they're spending on weapons systems and donate it to professional NGOs that will solve this crisis. And then spend the next thousand years in penitence for their crimes against the people of Yemen.

peterfisher1 9y ago

Thank god the US is helping in Yemen by dropping bombs. Bombs cure diseases right?

navigator01 9y ago

I'm thankful every day that I live in a developed nation that spares from this kind of suffering. We take so much for granted in the developed world, the cynicism with which many of us view our own nations is naive and shortsighted.

danharaj 9y ago
Good chance that your developed nation is complicit or directly causing the conditions which made this cholera outbreak occur.
- bertolo1988 9y ago
  Can you relate to Europe/US? I have no idea about what is going on on Yemen.
  - danharaj 9y ago
    US: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/the-united-states-is-complicit-in-the-destruction-of-yemen.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/08/the-united-stat...
  - k-ian 9y ago
    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/yemen-saudi-arabia-famine-starvation-uk-arms-sales-a7636586.html https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/yemen-saudi-arabia-fami... https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/31/opinion/columnists/yemen-famine-cholera.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/31/opinion/colum... https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/07/13/us-and-uk-acting-above-law-support-saudi-war-yemen https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/07/13/us-and-uk-acti... This crisis is entirely man-made. Saudis are crushing the Houthi rebels, indifferent to civlian starvation and disease.
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    US and the UK are assisting in the blockade of Yemen. The US, UK, Germany, France, China, Canada, and Al Quaeda are also providing arms sales and/or logistical support to the Saudi Arabia led coalition. Wikipedia source, but I'll gladly edit if you can disprove any of their sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian-led_intervention_in_Yemen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian-led_intervention...

Geekette 9y ago

I hit the link already mildly fuming at what I thought was clickbait because there's no way any place could be on track for one million cases of cholera in today's world. Quite heartbreaking to find out the headline is factual.

coldcode 9y ago
I wonder if Puerto Rico will begin showing Cholera outbreaks given it usually happens when sanitation systems fail or are destroyed.

k-ian 9y ago

Nice, Guardian. Only a passing mention of the civil war that has led to all this. The US and UK need to stop funding Saudi Arabia's military in order for this to stop happening in Yemen.

Theodores 9y ago
Completely. Really that Saudi Arabia effort of a 'country' needs to be boycotted for the human rights abuses and attitude towards women. However the big news in the UK yesterday was about BAE systems not able to keep everyone working and how hoped for orders from Saudi Arabia would save the day. So the share price of BAE systems and a few death industry Jobs matters more than cholera.
- tdb7893 9y ago
  To be fair there are little day to day effects of the cholera epidemic for people in the UK and people generally prefer stories more immediately applicable to them
dghughes 9y ago
It was an article about cholera and how it affects people in Yemen. The Guardian has article right next to the cholera article titled 'Blame the Saudis for Yemen's cholera outbreak – they are targeting the people'.
baursak 9y ago
It's not just funding. It's supplying with weapons and bombs and intelligence.
abalone 9y ago
"Conflict" is mentioned four times in the article and it very clearly states: More than two years of fighting between the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels has crippled the country, causing widespread internal displacement, the collapse of the public health system, and leaving millions on the brink of famine. It does not, however, mention US/UK support for it. I agree it would be better to connect the dismay that this article engenders in the reader with outrage for our support for Saudi Arabia.

l5870uoo9y 9y ago

In a correspondence between the Austrian and the German military during World War I, the Austrian army described their situation as serious, but not disastrous. The German military replied that their situation was disastrous, but not serious. I know likewise that our situation is disastrous with an climate crisis, economic crisis, refugee crisis, political crisis and now the worst cholera crisis in history too, but the situation still isn't seriously enough command some sort of action.

jansho 9y ago

It’s just heartbreaking that the solution to cholera is so simple. Boiled water and salt/sugar solution. What on Earth is going on in Yemen :(

sdiq 9y ago
I suppose, you don't eat fruits or uncooked vegetables? Transmission isn't just limited to using dirty water.
sbierwagen 9y ago
Note that the headline is saying that the Yemen cholera epidemic is the worst in recorded history by number of cases. I assume rehydration salts are available and being used by the simple fact that the case fatality rate is fairly low-- 0.26%. Seasonal flu, by comparison, has a CFR of ~0.1%. Cholera before rehydration salts could be quite deadly-- as recently as 1974, Yemen reported a CFR of 16.67%: http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.177 http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.177 (Some of the numbers reported in that table are oddly high-- Vietnam reported a CFR of 100% in 1954, then 4.32% ten years later. They're not showing the denominator, so the hundred percent figure could be just from a handful of cases. Reminds me of Ebola, which was thought to be a death sentence from the awful CFRs reported from small outbreaks, but brought down to a "mere" 25% with aggressive treatment in Western hospitals.)

sdiq 9y ago

Ironical that the only help that Yemen - the poorest country in the region - can get from the neighbouring resource rich countries is bombs raining from the sky. Now, Saudi Arabia so hates the Shias that they would rather bomb Yemen to the 3rd century than have the Shias takeover. Yet, surprisingly, the long serving Ali Abdullah Saleh himself a Shia, was always friendly to the Saudis. So what changed?

gpvos 9y ago
Iran, a Shia country, is getting more powerful, which Saudi Arabia (probably rightly) sees as a threat to its regional dominance. In general, Shias and Sunnis got along quite peacefully until a few decades ago.
- occultist_throw 9y ago
  And unfortunately, when it comes to religion, this is a flat-out religious war. But I mean, they're all Moslems, right? It has to do with who the rightful heir to Mohammed is. Is it Ali, or Abu Bakr? The answer to that question thus says which side of the interpretation of "Shia" or "Sunni" is. Long story short, it's not resolvable without a great deal of violence. Disagreements about succession are hardly ever peaceful.
  - gpvos 9y ago
    That does not address the question of what has changed causing SA to whack at everything Shia now, where it did not do so before.
    - lostlogin 9y ago
      The lack of repercussion from the world at large must be part of it.
    - wavefunction 9y ago
      The new Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia[0] is behind this and other 'efforts' in the Kingdom. [0]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/saudi-crown-prince-consolidate-power-arrests-clerics-mohammed-bin-salman https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/saudi-crown-pr...

abalone 9y ago

War is the biggest factor in this, but Yemen had a very serious problem with water scarcity to begin with. They were already on track to run out of water in their main city within a few years. Many were dependent on trucked-in water.[1] Now even that is impossible. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/apr/02/water-scarcity-yemen-conflict https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...

jimmywanger 9y ago
One of the biggest causes for the lack of water is the Yemeni use of khat (or qat), a stimulant that requires lots of water.[1] [1] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/yemen/2013-07-23/how-yemen-chewed-itself-dry https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/yemen/2013-07-23/how...

Synaesthesia 9y ago

It’s an atrocious war, being fought by the Saudis using cutting edge US weapons with US diplomatic support against a largely defenseless population.

modkodnd 9y ago

Real happy to see Saudi Arabia really earn their place as head of UN humans rights council!

kumarski 9y ago

This is the result of incompetency and inadequacy at multiple levels. Yemen ceased their vaccine campaign against cholera. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/cholera-vaccination-campaign-yemen-dropped https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/cholera-vaccination-...

tinix 9y ago
Cholera vaccines are not that effective... That's not the problem here.