Cholera confirmed in Lebanon, risk of spread ‘very high’: WHO

GENEVA: The risk of cholera spreading in Lebanon is “very high”, the World Health Organization warned Wednesday (Oct 16), after a case of the acute and potentially deadly diarrhoeal infection was detected in the conflict-ridden country.
The WHO highlighted 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, told 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 diarrhoea and dehydration.
The patient, from Ammouniyeh in northern Lebanon, had no history of travel, the ministry said.