"Risk Of Spread Is Very High": Lebanon Confirms Cholera Outbreak Since Israel Offensive (Telegram image @ Al-Quds News)
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the risk of cholera spreading in Lebanon is “very high.” The warning came after a case of the acute and potentially deadly diarrheal infection was detected in the war-hit country. The organisation highlighted the risks spreading among the thousands of people displaced since Tel Aviv started bombing campaign against Hezbollah.
Beirut’s Health Ministry said a cholera case had been confirmed in a person who went to hospital on Monday. The Lebanese national was suffering from watery diarrhoea and dehydration.
“If the cholera outbreak … spreads to the new displaced people, it might spread very fast,” WHO’s representative in Lebanon, Abdinasir Abubakar, told reporters during an online news conference.
The patient, who is from Ammouniyeh in northern Lebanon, had no history of travel, said the ministry.
The country reported its first cholera outbreak in 30 years between 2022 and 2023, mainly in the north region. Lebanon reported its first Cholera outbreak since 1993. The outbreak persisted for several months. Lebanon declared itself Cholera free in July last year.
According to WHO, Cholera causes severe diarrhoea, vomiting and muscle cramps, generally arises from eating or drinking food or water that is contaminated with the bacterium.
For months, the UN health agency has been warning that the disease could resurface amid “deteriorating water and sanitation” among the displaced and their host communities, said Abubakar.
Even before Israel’s bombing campaign in Lebanon started, thousands were displaced over the past year, due to the cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-aligned militant groups of the country. Hezbollah launched attack Israel’s military installation in a farm land in occupied Lebanon on October 8th, pledging solidarity with Hamas, and Gaza.
Also Read: Israeli Tanks Fire At UN Peacekeepers’ Posts In Lebanon; 2 Injured
While people in northern Lebanon had been exposed or vaccinated against Cholera, Abubakar cautioned that some communities on the move from southern Lebanon and the Beirut area had not built up any cholera immunity for three decades. “The risk of spread is very high” if the disease reached these populations.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters that WHO had strengthened “surveillance and conduct tracing, including environmental surveillance and water sampling.”
In August, the Lebanese health ministry launched an oral cholera vaccination campaign targeting 350,000 people living in high-risk areas, but the campaign was “interrupted by the escalation in violence,” he said.
