Oxfam has warned of a new outbreak of cholera in Yemen with the rainy season approaching next month. The threat especially faces areas controlled by Houthi militias, whose corruption has wreaked havoc on the health sector.

The five governorates of Sanaa, Hajjah, Hodeidah, Taiz, and Dhamar have consistently reported high rates of cholera since 2017.

More than 56,000 suspected cases have already been recorded in the first seven weeks of 2020, roughly equal to the same period last year.

The number of cases of cholera in 2019 was the second-largest ever recorded in a country in a single year, surpassed only by the numbers in Yemen in 2017.

At over 860,000 suspected cases, the total in 2019 is more than two and a half times the size of the third largest number in a single country in one year. In 2017, there were over a million cases.

Yemen’s cholera outbreak began in April 2017 and quickly spiraled out of control with more than 360,000 cases recorded in the first three months.

Although the rate of new infections had slowed a year later, the number of suspected cases began to rise again in early 2019.

The prolonged and consistent nature of new cases over the last 14 months shows the disease is still rampant in Yemen.

“The outlook is bleak for people in Yemen with cholera continuing at similar levels to last year and the rainy season likely to see thousands more people infected,” Oxfam’s Yemen Country Director Muhsin Siddiquey said.

“A lack of clean water and food has left many people weak and vulnerable to disease,” he added.

“We need urgent action from the international community to ensure safe, secure, and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid and to bring the parties together to agree a nationwide ceasefire.”

The number of deaths from cholera in 2019 dropped to 1025 - less than half the number of fatalities in 2017. But efforts to definitively beat the disease have been massively undermined by the war, which has decimated health, water, and sanitation systems.

Medical supplies are in chronically short supply and only around half the health facilities in Yemen are fully functioning. More than 17 million people struggle to get clean water.