Sanaa - Yemen's epidemic cholera is escalating at an alarming rate as one child is infected with the disease every 35 seconds, Save the Children reported. The rate of infection has more than tripled over the past two weeks, and 46% of the estimated 5,470 new daily cases of suspected cholera/acute watery diarrhoea (AWD) are children under 15 years, Save the Children stated. Grant Pritchard, the charity's director in Yemen, warned the country is on "the verge of total collapse" as a combination of near-famine conditions and crippled infrastructure fuel the spread of cholera. Dr Meritxell Relaño, the Unicef Yemen representative, said the epidemic has come on top of a crisis in public services, which has crippled health, water and sanitation systems. "Cholera came at a moment where the system was about to collapse, where poverty was increasing, where malnutrition peaked. You can imagine what diarrhoea can do to a child who is already very weak, whose immune system is at a minimum – children who are six months old and are only 2.5kg," she said.
