
Yemen's cholera outbreak now the worst in history as millionth case looms - jansho
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/oct/12/yemen-cholera-outbreak-worst-in-history-1-million-cases-by-end-of-year
======
k-ian
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.

~~~
lossolo
> The US and UK need to stop funding Saudi Arabia's military in order for this
> to stop happening in Yemen.

It's not so simple. It's all about influence between Iran (which means Iran,
Russia etc block) and Saudi Arabia (which means USA, UK etc side block) in
Yemen. You can be on one side or on the other, there is no middle ground
there. None of the players really cares about Yemen, on this level game is
different, there are no "values" besides influence/money.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
So Yemen is a proxy war, just like Syria is then?

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

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sdiq
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
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
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
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.

~~~
wavefunction
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-
pr...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/14/saudi-crown-prince-
consolidate-power-arrests-clerics-mohammed-bin-salman)

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abalone
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...](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-
professionals-network/2015/apr/02/water-scarcity-yemen-conflict)

~~~
jimmywanger
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...](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/yemen/2013-07-23/how-
yemen-chewed-itself-dry)

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

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

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kumarski
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-...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/cholera-vaccination-
campaign-yemen-dropped)

~~~
tinix
Cholera vaccines are not that effective... That's not the problem here.

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jansho
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 :(

~~~
sbierwagen
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.)

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l5870uoo9y
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.

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

~~~
wavefunction
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.

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Alex3917
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.

~~~
xxpor
Just wondering, how do you know they're Yemeni?

~~~
Alex3917
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
> 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
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)

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navigator01
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.

~~~
owebmaster
Don't be so thankful because if your country lose (as it is probably one of
the countries supporting this and other invasions on the globe), it might
happen to be your time to suffer the same fate.

