Hospitals in the Syrian capital have been put on alert after more than two dozen cases of cholera and at least five deaths were reported in the war-torn country, health officials said Monday.

The main cause of the spread appears to be people drinking polluted water as well as watering plants in some areas with unclean water.

Syria’s infrastructure has suffered severe damage since the country’s conflict began in March 2011 where residents of some areas have no access to clean water. The conflict had killed hundreds of thousands and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million, many of them living in tent settlements around the country.

The World Health Organization's (WHO) office in Damascus had no immediate comment.

State news agency SANA quoted the head of the Health Ministry in Damascus, Mohammed Samer Shahrour, as saying that the ministry is coordinating with departments in all provinces to test the water as well as some fruits and vegetable. He added that hospitals in government-held parts of the country have the medicines to deal with cholera cases.

In areas controlled by U.S.-backed fighters in northeast Syria, the head of the health department in the region, Jwan Mustafa, reported three deaths and several other cases over the weekend.

Mustafa added in a statement that most of the cases in areas under the control of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria are in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour. He said some were discharged from the hospital.

The ministry said cholera was also discovered in a factory in Aleppo that makes ice cubes and was closed immediately.

The health ministry urged residents to make sure they are drinking water from a known clean source as well as to wash well fruits and vegetables.

'Serious threat'

A cholera outbreak in several regions of Syria presents "a serious threat to people in Syria and the region," the United Nations representative in the country said, calling for an urgent response to contain its spread.

The outbreak is believed to be linked to irrigation of crops using contaminated water and people drinking unsafe water from the Euphrates river which bisects Syria from the north to the east, U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Imran Riza said in a statement.

The widespread destruction of national water infrastructure after more than a decade of war means much of the Syrian population is reliant on unsafe water sources.

Richard Brennan, Regional Emergency Director of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, said the agency had recorded eight deaths from the disease since Aug. 25: six in Aleppo in the north and two in Deir al-Zor in the east.

"This is the first confirmed cholera outbreak in recent years ... the geographic spread gives cause for concern and so we have to move fast," he told Reuters via phone.

The outbreak is centered in the northern Aleppo region, where more than 70% of 936 suspected cases have been recorded, and Deir al-Zor, where more than 20% were registered.

A smaller number of suspected cases have been recorded in Raqqa, al-Hasaka, Hama and Lattakia.

The number of confirmed cholera cases is 20 in Aleppo, four in Lattakia and two in Damascus.

Prior to the recent cholera outbreak, the water crisis had caused an increase in diseases such as diarrhea, malnutrition and skin conditions in the region, according to the World Health Organization.

Brennan said the WHO was appealing to donors to increase funding as the organization was already dealing with a number of cholera outbreaks in the region, including in Pakistan where floods have exacerbated a pre-existing outbreak.

"We need to scale up surveillance and testing capacity ... efforts are underway to truck clean water to the communities most affected," he said.