Yemen health system ‘edging closer to collapse’ warns WHO
SMA NEWS – GENEVA
Yemen’s fragile health system is “severely overburdened” the World Health Organization’s (WHO) leading official for emergency operations in the country said on Friday, and more international funding is urgently needed to stop it deteriorating further.
Hopes are running high of an end to the intense fighting between a Saudi-backed coalition standing alongside Government forces, and Houthi rebels and their allies, which since 2015 has led the near total collapse of the economy, with tens of thousands killed, and 21.6 million in need of humanitarian assistance and protection this year, according to the UN.
“Nevertheless, the country’s fragile health system is severely overburdened and edging closer to collapse”, said Dr. Annette Heinzelmann of the WHO in Yemen, “while international donor funding is insufficient to avert further deterioration of the country’s failing health services.”
She said that around 12.9 million Yemenis have urgent humanitarian healthcare needs, with 540,000 children under five, currently suffering from severe acute malnutrition “with a direct risk of death.”
Some 46 percent of health facilities across the country are only partially functioning or completely out of service, due to shortages of staff, funds, electricity, or medicines.
She told journalists at the regular Friday briefing at the UN in Geneva, that the Yemen humanitarian “Health Cluster”, made up of 46 UN and non-governmental organizations, has received only 62 million — or 16 percent — of the $392 million needed to reach those 12.9 million most-vulnerable people.
“Disease outbreaks — notably of measles, diphtheria, dengue, cholera and polio — are accelerating Yemen’s deepening health crisis. Mass-displacements, overburdened health facilities, disruptions of water and sanitation networks, and low immunization coverage are triggering and spreading these disease outbreaks.”
In the first quarter of this year, more than 13,000 new cases of measles, 8,777 cases of dengue fever, and 2,080 suspected cholera cases were reported. “But the actual numbers are likely much higher”, she warned.
