ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – Aziz Dabbas, 35, moved his family from the al-Safira area, 25 kilometers southeast of Aleppo, to the Hanano district in Aleppo in early 2023. They were not escaping war or poverty, but the specter of cholera, which has spread frighteningly quickly across the eastern countryside of Aleppo.
Dabbas told North Press that they decided to pick up and move after his wife became infected. His children were terrified.
Dabba’s wife contracted cholera in November of 2022 and was treated at the private al-Salam Hospital, located next to the Ibn Rushd public hospital, “as there was no room for her in the government-run hospital.”
Her ten-day stay put the family back around 1.200.000 SYP ($180).
Case numbers on the rise
Warda al-Hanadi, 50, from the village of Jdeidet Tel Sab’in, in the eastern countryside of Aleppo, told North Press, “My daughter is very tired, nobody understand her condition, she is dying.”
The mother has done her best to provide treatment for the seven-year-old Aisha, who was transferred from the University Hospital to the al-Razi public hospital. Aisha arrived in a critical condition, with symptoms such as a dry mouth and severe diarrhea.
“The hospital provided first aid to my daughter; she was transferred to intensive care unit because she lost a lot of fluids and her health condition was critical,” she added to North Press.
Despite the large number of patients seeking out treatment in government-run hospitals, which provide free healthcare, al-Hanadi was able to secure a bed for her daughter after paying a bribe to a hospital official.
“If you do not pay bribes, you will not survive in this country,” the mother explains.
On January 16, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recorded 100 cholera-related deaths in Syria.
OCHA recorded 77.561 suspected cholera cases, including the 100 deaths, between August 25, 2022, and January 7, 2023.
The report noted that the fatality rate in Syria was 0.13%.
On October 2022, the UN attributed the rise in cholera cases in Syria to a severe decline in the Euphrates River water level, drought-like conditions, and people resorting to unsafe water sources.
In early September, the Syrian Ministry of Health announced the first cholera case in Aleppo’s al-Razi Hospital. A 9-year-old child had been brought in from the eastern countryside after drinking contaminated water.
On September 10, 2022, the ministry recorded 15 cholera infections in the Aleppo Governorate.
Cholera has spread widely among children and adults across al-Hanadi’s village. The likely cause is a shared irrigation canal, dug close to their homes, which irrigates all the residents’ farmlands.
Al-Hanadi blamed municipal officials for the outbreak. He accused them of neglecting public infrastructure in the village, which is home to over 1.000 families.
Statistics
On its official Facebook account, the Syrian Ministry of Health claimed to have vaccinated 95.3 percent of groups targeted by its anti-cholera campaign in the regions of Aleppo, Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor and Hasakah.
The last update of infection cases provided by the ministry is 1.652. This includes 1.004 cases in Aleppo Governorate, 235 in Deir ez-Zor, 98 in Latakia, 96 in Hasakah, 54 in Raqqa, 52 in Hama, 31 in Homs, 26 in Suwayda, 20 in Damascus, 17 in Rif Dimashq, ten in Tartus, five in Daraa, and four in Quneitra.
The ministry also recorded 49 cholera-related deaths, 40 in Aleppo Governorate, four in Hasakah, two in Deir ez-Zor, and one each in Damascus, Homs and Hama.
Mahmoud Ahmad, a pseudonym for a doctor working for Aleppo’s Laboratory Board, said that during December 2022, the laboratory tested roughly 14.000 positive cases and 1.658 negative cases. These statistic was collected only from among the laboratories located in the city, not including the statistics from public hospitals.
The doctor added that the al-Razi Hospital has halted all non-emergency procedures in order to focus on receiving and treating cholera cases.
Comparing the two statistics, it appears that there is discrepancy in the registered numbers announced by the Ministry of Health, “because it does not announce the number of cases recorded in Aleppo’s private hospital laboratories.”
Aleppines continue to worry about the epidemic’s spread, as well as the government’s refusal to give a full account of cholera cases in the region.