Syrian medics launched the first cholera vaccination campaign in the rebel-held northwest on Tuesday since a deadly outbreak began last year, amid fears of infection after last month’s devastating earthquake.
Health workers are going door-to-door to inoculate people in homes and displacement camps in the Idlib region, the last major rebel stronghold in the war-torn country, an AFP reporter said.
First cholera outbreak in Syria
Syria’s first cholera outbreak since 2009 has killed at least 26 people in areas outside Syrian regime control since September, according to Idlib health official Zuhair Karrat.
WATCH: A week after the earthquake in Syria
Local authorities have recorded 565 cases of the highly dangerous disease, Karrat added. Across Syria some 85,000 suspected cases have been recorded, according to the United Nations.
The vaccination campaign, which depends on UN supplies and had been planned before the February 6 earthquake, began on Tuesday and “will last 10 working days”, said another Idlib health official, Rifaat al-Farhat.
Officials have told AFP they are targeting “high-risk areas” near the border with Turkey that have been affected by the tremors.
The quake killed more than 50,000 people in both countries, including nearly 6,000 in Syria, according to officials and medics.
It left more than 10,000 buildings completely or partially destroyed in northwestern Syria, according to the United Nations.
Syria’s rebel-held pocket healthcare sector has been hit hard, as hospitals and civilian infrastructure have been damaged by Russian airstrikes and regime attacks.
Also read: Syria earthquake survivors fight in tents and vehicles
Thousands of people are now swimming in cramped shelters and tents, with access to clean water and poor hygiene, leading to a higher risk of infection.
The situation means “the risk of disease outbreaks is increasing,” Ammar Ammar of the UN children’s agency UNICEF told AFP.
“For vulnerable children, the increase in water-borne diseases such as cholera and acute water diarrhea could be catastrophic.”
1.7 million vaccines
The United Nations sent 1.7 million cholera vaccines to northwestern Syria in January in preparation for an inoculation campaign.
More than four million people live in areas outside government control in northern and northwestern Syria.
Cholera is usually contracted from contaminated food or water, and causes diarrhea and vomiting.
Also read: Earthquake-hit Syrian city buries dead in farmland
The disease can spread in residential areas that do not have sewerage and drinking water systems.
Even before the earthquake, nearly two-thirds of Syria’s water treatment plants, half of its pumping stations and one-third of its water towers had been destroyed in nearly 12 years of war, the UN said.
Cholera can kill within hours if left untreated, according to the UN, but many infected have no symptoms or are mild.