YANGON (Bloomberg): A cholera outbreak has killed at least three people in Myanmar, and hundreds more have been hospitalized with diarrhea, putting fresh strain on a health system already struggling with civil war and economic turmoil.
One person died in Yangon, the country’s largest city, and two in Sittwe in western Rakhine State, according to the health officials. Sittwe is among the few major population centers in Rakhine that remain under the military-backed government’s control.
In Yangon, about 500 people were hospitalized with diarrhea between Aug. 9 and Aug. 16, Bo Htay, Yangon Region Government’s social affairs minister, told lawmakers on Monday. Of those, 149 tested positive for cholera.
The Health Ministry separately reported 82 cases of diarrhea in Rakhine and Mon states as of Aug. 15, including 22 cholera cases in Sittwe.
Authorities have deployed response teams to affected areas to test water supplies, monitor chlorine levels and conduct door-to-door disease-control efforts, the ministry said.
Most of Yangon’s hospitalized patients were from neighborhoods in the city center, according to Health Ministry Director General Myat Wunna Soe.
Health workers have been sent to the worst-affected areas and public hospitals are prepared to receive more patients, he told Bloomberg News on Tuesday.
The outbreak comes during Myanmar’s monsoon season as flooding affects tens of thousands of people elsewhere in the country, though authorities have not linked the cholera cases to the floods.
More than 32,000 people have been affected by flooding in Laymyethna township in the Ayeyarwady region after heavy rains breached river embankments, according to the United Nations World Food Programme.
Myanmar’s public-health system has been severely strained by years of conflict and economic disruption since the military seized power in 2021, with fighting displacing millions of people and disrupting access to healthcare and clean water in parts of the country.
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