Lebanon’s Health Minister criticizes the “regression in basic services” after recent cholera cases

Oct. 10 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Lebanese Health Minister, Firas Abiad, criticized this Sunday the “regression in basic services” in terms of health, after the first cholera infections were registered this week after almost three decades without the disease in the country.

“We have seen a drop in basic services, whether for the Lebanese people or for the refugees. This setback is reaching a level that exposes Lebanon to epidemics that it has not seen in a long time,” Abiad said in statements collected by the newspaper ‘L’Orient Le Jour’.

The minister was on a tour of the north of the country, where he has visited a water treatment plant, a refugee camp and hospitals in the region.

“There is also a decrease in aid from our international partners under many pretexts,” Abiad denounced. “We do not accept excuses, because the resolution of the eleven-year refugee problem is not the exclusive responsibility of Lebanon, but also and mainly of the international community,” he added, referring to the civil war in Syria.

Lebanon confirmed this Friday the second case of cholera in the country, after reporting on Thursday the first contagion in nearly three decades. “There are several suspected cases and the necessary tests are being carried out to confirm them,” said the minister, who stressed that the authorities have “medicines for a large number of patients.”

Precisely this Thursday the WHO warned of the resurgence of cholera at a global level, attributing it in part to climate change. In the first nine months of the year, 27 countries have reported outbreaks of this disease, which has also caused all the alarms to go off in Haiti.

Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease caused by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the ‘vibrio cholerae bacillus’, according to the WHO on its website, where it stresses that “cholera continues to be a global threat to public health and a indicator of inequity and lack of social development”.