The number of suspected cases reaches almost 30,000 in the war-torn country whose healthcare system is collapsing.

A cholera outbreak in war-ravaged Yemen has killed 315 people since April 27, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday.

The cholera infection is continuing to spread across Yemen with more than 29,300 suspected cases reported in 19 of the country's 22 provinces, the agency added in a tweet.

The latest tallies come a day after the international charity organization Doctors without Borders warned that the cholera outbreak could get out of control in Yemen.

The impoverished country has been devastated by a power struggle between the government and Iran-aligned rebels since late 2014. Yemen's ongoing violence has taken a toll on its healthcare centers.

Last week, a state of emergency was declared in the rebel-held capital Sana'a after a large number of cholera cases were detected in the city.

More than half of the country's medical facilities no longer function, the WHO said. Some 7.6 million people live in Yemen's cholera-threatened areas, according to UN estimates.
On Friday, the WHO warned that Yemen could have as many as 300,000 cases of cholera within six months and an "extremely high" number of deaths.

"We need to expect something that could go up to 200,000-250,000 cases over the next six months, in addition to the 50,000 cases that have already occurred," Nevio Zagaria, WHO

Yemen representative, told reporters in Geneva.

The cost in lives from an infection rate on this scale would be "extremely, extremely high", he said, adding that "the speed of the resurgence of the cholera epidemic is unprecedented [for Yemen]".

Yemenis have been suffering from a significant lack of access to food, clean water, as well as medications that have contributed to the spread of the infection.

PHOTO CAPTION

People displaced by the war in northwestern Yemen, are pictured next to their makeshift hut on the pavement of a street in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, Yemen May 15, 2017. REUTERS

Al-Jazeera