UN: More than 200,000 suspected cholera cases in Yemen

BERLIN – The U.N. health agency says there are now more than 200,000 suspected cases of cholera in an outbreak in war-torn Yemen, many of them children.

UNICEF director Anthony Lake and World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan said in a statement Saturday, “we are now facing the worst cholera outbreak in the world,” with an average of 5,000 new cases every day. The agencies say that more than 1,300 people have died — one quarter of them children — and the death toll is expected to rise.

The U.N. says collapsing health, water and sanitation systems have cut off 14.5 million people from regular access to clean water and sanitation, increasing the ability of the disease to spread.

In addition, an estimated 30,000 local health workers have not been paid for nearly 10 months.