Syria: 4 dead, many infected with cholera due to contaminated water

Damascus: Four people died of cholera due to the contamination of drinking water in Syria. The Kurdish administration has appealed to international organizations to provide support to limit its spread.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the symptoms began to appear on September 6 and have been confirmed through laboratory tests and sampling.

The symptoms have appeared in hundreds of civilians such as vomiting, diarrhoea, headaches, high body temperature, hypotension, and muscle spasms.

As per media reports, the majority of the affected cases are from the villages of the western countryside of Deir Ezzor, such as the villages of Al-Harmushiyeh, Hawaej Bumosaa’, Al-Kasrah and Al-Zughayr.

In turn, the Syrian Ministry of Health announced 16 cases of cholera in Aleppo governorate, which is mostly under the control of the government

The Kurdish administration called on international agencies, “especially the World Health Organization, to provide the necessary support to limit the spread of cholera.”

Cholera usually appears in residential areas with scarce drinking water or no sanitation systems. It is often caused by ingestion of contaminated food or water and leads to diarrhea and vomiting.

After an 11-year conflict, Syria is witnessing a severe water crisis, with the destruction of the water and sanitation infrastructure.

Neighbouring Iraq has witnessed since June a wave of cholera cases, for the first time since 2015.

The disease affects between 1.3 million and 4 million people annually in the world and leads to the death of between 21,000 and 143,000 people.