Cholera seems recent pandemic to ravage northeast Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North press) – Residents of northeast Syria were astonished to hear about three cholera deaths in their areas.
On September 10, Health Board of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) announced three deaths of cholera in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor.
The first cases of cholera were reported on September 6.
On Sunday, Jwan Mustafa, Co-chair of the AANES Health Board, said “Cholera infections recorded in the western countryside of Deir ez-Zor were caused by contaminated water.”
In a statement made to the official website of the AANES, Mustafa said, “The Board continues its studies and researches in this regard.”
A medial source from al-Kasra Hospital in the western countryside of Deir ez–Zor told North Press that 50 swaps were taken for suspected cholera cases, 24 of which recorded positive. Many others cases of infections were recorded in Raqqa.
Attributed mainly to contamination, cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholera.
The AANES and international aid organizations operate in the region called on the international community and specifically the World Health Organization (WHO) to render medical help to the region.
Syria, a country ravaged by a long-decade war and displacement is an easy prey to such pandemics where there is a lack of medical services and staffs. Syria has never witnessed cholera in modern history.
Both Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor lie on the Euphrates River whose level has been decreased since 2020 by Turkey that made the river nearly a drained one. Time and again the AANES warned the international community against humanitarian and ecological catastrophes in the region in case Turkey continues its water reduction policy. The plight remained trailing.
During the last two years, the level of the Euphrates has fallen to unprecedented records which turned into a swamp portends the spread of diseases and epidemics.
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, northeast Syrian was riddled, and still though relatively, with sweeping outbreak of leishmaniasis that local authorities could hardly cope with.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported four deaths and hundreds of cases in Deir ez-Zor countryside.
In turn, the Syrian government’s Ministry of Health announced 16 cases of cholera in Aleppo governorate, mostly under its control. 15 people are in quarantine and being treated at Aleppo’s hospitals, Xinhua reported.
However, a source told North Press that two deaths attributed to the pandemic were reported in the al-Razi Hospital in the city of Aleppo and 35 cases were confirmed as positive.
Later, state-run media outlets categorically denied there had been any cases of the pandemic in the country. Saying the reported cases was mere diarrhea.
In northwest Syria, Ministry of Health of the Salvation Government in Idlib, which is run by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, formerly known as al-Nusra Front) rang the bell of danger when it called on locals to take precautionary steps notably not to belittle any diarrhoeal cases.
Syria, after eleven years of struggle which turned it into a battleground for competing local, regional and global powers has another struggle ahead to cope with, notably a very more grave and difficult one ever since.