East African migrants are affected by the cholera epidemic

A group of British and French scientists hypothesized that East African immigrants would be at the root of the cholera outbreak that erupted in Yemen from of 2016 and which was considered the worst epidemic in history.

Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Pasteur Institute in France have used gene sequencing techniques that revealed that the cholera strain that had spread to Yemen had left the family. East Africa through immigrants, according to the journal Nature.

The researchers studied 42 cases of cholera from infected people in Yemen and others in a refugee center on the Saudi-Yemeni border, compared with 74 cholera samples from South Asia, the Middle East and the Middle East. East and East and Central Africa.

They concluded that the cholera strain in Yemen was associated with the first outbreak of the disease in South Asia in 2012, then spread worldwide, and that she had not been transmitted to Yemen directly from South Asia or the Middle East, but spread to East Africa between 2013 and 2014, before appearing in Yemen in 2016.

Researchers are waiting for their discovery to help assess the risk of future disease onset and the possibilities of surrounding it before it spreads.

Since 2016, the epidemic has affected 1.5 million Yemenis, caused more than 2,770 deaths and compounded the suffering resulting from the conflict of more than three years. Some 16 million Yemenis do not have access to safe drinking water, and 10 million people do not know where their next meal will come from.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Yemen has experienced two cholera outbreaks since the beginning of the war, the first wave between October 2016 and April 2017. There were 25,800 suspected cases, 129 deaths and the second wave began in April 2017. More than 1.3 million cases and 2,641 deaths were reported in November.