Hundreds hospitalised as cholera outbreak hits Yangon

A total of 500 people have been hospitalised for severe diarrhoea in Myanmar’s largest city, a Yangon official said on Monday, with nearly 150 testing positive for cholera.

Myanmar’s infrastructure and health sector are creaking after more than five years of civil war in which more than 100,000 people are estimated to have been killed — and with the economy moribund.

Since August 9, 500 people have been hospitalised for diarrhoea, the key symptom of cholera, said the regional social affairs minister Bo Htay.

His comments were the first official confirmation that cholera was involved, more than a week after the first hospital admissions.

Rapid tests for cholera had shown 149 positive cases, he told the parliament for the Yangon region, which includes the country’s largest city.

Nine of them had been formally confirmed as vibrio cholerae cases by the National Health Laboratory, he added.

Cholera is a severe diarrheal infection caused by consuming contaminated food or water, and can be fatal within hours if not treated.

The World Health Organization describes it as “a global public health threat and indicates inequity and lack of social and economic development”.

More than 100 new patients were admitted to hospital last Thursday, the minister said, but new cases had since declined.

A 92-year-old patient died after being admitted to hospital with diarrhoea, but the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Sunday cited officials as saying the man had succumbed to underlying heart and lung conditions.

Health personnel were carrying out “epidemiological surveillance and outbreak-control measures in affected areas”, it quoted officials as saying.

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