Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute's Rubin Family Arab Politics Program, where she focuses on Shia politics throughout the Levant.
Andrew J. Tabler is the Martin J. Gross Senior Fellow in the Linda and Tony Rubin Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute, where he focuses on Syria and U.S. policy in the Levant.
What has caused Lebanon's devastating cholera epidemic, and why haven't authorities and healthcare professionals been able to stop it?
The breakdown of governance in Syria and Lebanon has given rise to the largest outbreak of cholera in the Middle East in decades and is impeding efforts to combat this often deadly disease. In this video, Institute senior fellows Hanin Ghaddar and Andrew J. Tabler analyze the causes of the cholera epidemic and the many factors that prevent its eradication. “The goal of the international health and medical organizations is to stop the spread and contain the disease but the problem is not medical,” Ghaddar explains. “This is happening because of the collapse of state institutions.”
Washington and its allies now must thread the needle on addressing the problems resulting from state breakdown in Syria and Lebanon all the while maintaining measures designed to address Assad and Hezbollah’s destabilizing behavior.
