Lebanon: Cholera fears for communities uprooted by war

This article is published in association with United Nations.

The UN health agency has warned that a first case of highly infectious cholera virus has been detected in northern Lebanon, raising fears that those displaced by Israeli bombardment may already be at risk from the potentially deadly disease.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that a response plan had been activated to strengthen surveillance, contact tracing and water sampling.

The case was confirmed in Akkar, the country’s northernmost governorate.

Speaking in Geneva late Wednesday, Tedros noted that the Lebanese health authorities had launched an oral vaccination drive in August targeting 350,000 people.

But this health campaign had been “interrupted by the escalation in violence”, he said, a reference to intensifying exchanges of fire by Hezbollah and the Israeli military since the Gaza war erupted last October and last month’s intensifying strikes by Israel, amid ongoing Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli communities.

Fears for the unvaccinated

Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar, Acting WHO Representative in Lebanon, expressed concerns that many of those who had fled the violence in the south of the country had no protection from cholera, which thrives in poor water and sanitary conditions. Some 1.2 million have been uprooted so far, according to authorities.

“It might spread very fast,” he said. “Because some of those communities from the south and from Beirut don’t have [much] cholera immunity for the last 30 years and the risk of spread is very high.”

The immediate threat of cholera has presented yet another challenge for UN humanitarians and their partners working amid ongoing devastating airstrikes reported in eastern Lebanon overnight and another on a government building in the southern town of Nabatieh on Wednesday that killed 16 people, including the mayor.

WHO chief Tedros said that the UN agency has already distributed medical supplies to priority hospitals to treat victims of Israeli bombardment. The UN health agency is also working with the Lebanese Red Cross and hospital to equip blood banks with supplies for safe blood donation “and we’re training surgeons to save lives and limbs”, Tedros said. He added: “The solution to this suffering is not aid, but peace.”

Attacks on healthcare

According to WHO tracking data, since the escalation of hostilities began one month ago, there have been 23 verified attacks on healthcare that have led to 72 deaths and 43 injuries among health workers and patients.

The Lebanese authorities, meanwhile, have reported that some 2,200 people have been killed since last October.

“A growing number of health facilities have had to shut down, particularly in the south, due to intense bombardment and insecurity,” Tedros said, adding that almost half of all primary health care centres in conflict-affected areas have closed, while 11 hospitals have been either fully or partially evacuated. “Hospitals are already under massive strain as they deal with an unprecedented influx of injuries, while trying to sustain essential services,” he said.

Gaza polio drive priority

In Gaza, where the second round of a polio vaccination campaign is underway, the WHO chief insisted that its success depended on being able to reach “at least 90 per cent” of children under 10 years old across the enclave, “in all communities and neighbourhoods”.

© UNRWA

UNRWA and partners have started the second round of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza.

A minimum of two doses of vaccine are needed to interrupt poliovirus transmission, Tedros said, before warning that intensifying violence in northern Gaza had “blocked” humanitarian missions.

“In the first half of October, only one UN mission out of 54 to northern Gaza was successfully facilitated,” he said. “The rest were denied, cancelled or impeded. We ask Israel to give WHO and our partners access to the north so we can reach those who desperately need aid.”

After nine attempts, a mission from the UN health agency and partners finally delivered supplies and fuel to Kamal Adwan and Al-Sahaba hospitals last Saturday, Tedros explained, before condemning continuing attacks on healthcare across Gaza.

This included Monday’s airstrike on the courtyard of Al Aqsa hospital in Deir Al Balah where people were sleeping in tents, “the eighth time that Al Aqsa hospital compound has been attacked since March this year”.

Top UN aid official Joyce Msuya told the Security Council on Wednesday that in the last seven days, nearly 400 Palestinians were reportedly killed and almost 1,500 injured in Gaza. “The world has seen the images of patients and displaced people, sheltering near Al Aqsa Hospital, burning alive,” the Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs said.

Ms. Msuya noted that since the beginning of October more than 55,000 people have been displaced from Jabalia in northern Gaza “while others remain stranded in their homes, with water and food running out”.

No food aid entered the north from 2 to 15 October, she added “when a trickle was allowed in – and all essential supplies for survival are running out. Distributions of existing food supplies to people in need continue, but these stocks are quickly dwindling.”