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Yemen’s health crisis: WHO calls for increased funding to save millions of Yemenis
Read the infographicSana’a, Yemen, 26 February 2023 – Ahead of tomorrow’s High-Level Pledging Event for the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen, the World Health Organization (WHO) together with its Health Cluster partners in Yemen is appealing for US$ 392 million to reach 12.9 million people with essential health assistance in 2023.
“Yemen requires urgent and robust support from international donors and other partners to effectively avert the potential collapse of its health system,” said Dr Adham Abdel Moneim, WHO Representative in Yemen. “New funding to the amount of US$ 392 million is required by Yemen’s health sector to ensure that overstretched health facilities can continue providing even most basic services to 12.9 million of the most vulnerable people.”
In 2022, international funding pledges enabled WHO and 44 Health Cluster partners (including 4 other UN agencies, 39 international and local NGOs, and Yemen’s Ministry of Public Health and Population) to deliver medical equipment, supplies, training and other support to hospitals and health facilities that provided a wide range of vital and often lifesaving services to nearly 7.8 million Yemenis. Nevertheless, this level of funding fell far short of addressing identified and urgent health needs of some 12.6 million persons, effectively limiting assistance to only 7.8 million of them.
Increased funding urgently needed
To date in 2023, funds pledged to the WHO-led Health Cluster equals only 3.5% of the US$ 392 million required to provide even most basic services to the 12.9 million most vulnerable Yemenis targeted by this year’s United Nations Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Yemen,” said Dr Adham Abdel Moneim. “They include up to 540 000 children under the age of 5 who are otherwise facing severe acute malnutrition, with direct risk of death.”
“Unless and until this massive funding gap is reversed, we will not be able to sustain our health emergency interventions in Yemen. We therefore call upon donors to continue to support our efforts to provide essential and lifesaving health services to the Yemeni people,” Dr Adham Abdel Moneim said.
Yemen requires continuing strong support from the international donor community to deliver a minimum health service package that prioritizes access to primary health care services by vulnerable population groups, especially in remote and conflict-affected districts of Yemen where these services are most needed.
This minimum service package entails health interventions and continuum of services prioritized at each level of care – from prevention and diagnosis to treatment and rehabilitation – in order to:
maintain even low levels of immunization coverage against recurring and fast-spreading outbreaks of communicable diseases, including COVID-19, measles, diphtheria and the vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2);
sustain and strengthen local capacities to detect, assess, and contain vector-borne and waterborne diseases, including malaria, dengue fever, and cholera;
ensure adequate nutrition surveillance and continuation of life-saving medical and nutrition care for Yemeni infants and children, especially those suffering from severe acute malnutrition with medical complications;
continue deliveries of essential fuel, oxygen, medicines, and water, sanitation and hygiene for services (WASH) for infection prevention and control to functioning/targeted health facilities country-wide; and
prevent the potential collapse of Yemen’s health system, which will otherwise be unable to reach some 39.5% of the population.
“Tomorrow’s high-level pledging event for the humanitarian crisis in Yemen comes at a crucial moment to show the world’s commitment to assisting millions of Yemenis who are in distress and suffering from diseases, malnutrition, and trauma,” Dr Adham Abdel Moneim added.
Underfunding of the Health Cluster in Yemen in 2023 (serving 4812 health facilities, 276 hospitals and specialized centres, 1199 health centres, and 3337 health units) will result in:
Up to 1000 unsupported health facilities;
10 million persons, including 7.9 million children, without needed access to health services;
1.1 million children with acute malnutrition facing deteriorating health or death; and
2.9 million women of reproductive age lacking maternal, child, and reproductive services.
Note to the editors
Worsening health situation and WHO’s response across Yemen
Nearly 9 years of conflict has left over two thirds of Yemen’s population (21.6 million people) in present need of humanitarian assistance. An estimated 4.5 million people are internally displaced. Endemic violence, a deteriorating economy, mounting food insecurity and recurring disease outbreaks have all but collapsed the country’s health system. Across Yemen currently, 46% of all health facilities are only partially functioning or completely out of service due to shortages of staff, funds, electricity, medicines, supplies, and equipment.
In 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) provided life-saving medical and healthcare services to 12.6 million Yemenis – 62% of last year’s Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP).
The World Health Organization (WHO) is sustaining an integrated response in these priority areas: 1) coordinating the national Health Cluster; 2) keeping therapeutic feeding centres (TFCs) operational; 3) strengthening disease surveillance; 4) responding to all infectious disease outbreaks; 5) supporting health care facilities and services; 6) controlling vector-borne, water-borne, and neglected tropical diseases; 7) fighting chronic diseases including diabetes, renal diseases, and cancer; 8) maintaining water, sanitation and hygiene services (WASH) to strengthening infection prevention and control measures in hospitals; 9) supporting and improving maternal and newborn health care; and 10) responding to a neglected mental health crisis.
WHO follows an integrated and sustainable health approach focused on ensuring continuous access to health for all vulnerable people, while also strengthening the capacities and efficiencies of the national health system and Ministry of Public Health and Population in Yemen with sustainable solutions.
These solutions include but are not limited to the rehabilitation of health facilities; the establishment of units and laboratories that the Yemeni health system lacks; the establishment of a disease outbreak surveillance system, a health information management system, and much more.
For further information, contact:
Tarik Jasarevic
Media Relations
World Health Organization
Mobile: +41 793 676 214
Tel: +41 22 791 5099
e-mail:
Kevin Cook
Senior Communications Advisor
WHO-Yemen Country Office
Mobile: 01-727-377-0871
e-mail:
Strength from suffering
Heroism on the frontlines of Yemen’s fight against genetic blood disorders
12 February 2023– Rehab Fuad has survived deep poverty, chronic anemia and fatigue since being diagnosed with an inherited blood disorder – and all before reaching her first birthday.
But Rehab’s suffering has made her a much stronger person today. Highly resilient and resolutely focused on achieving her dreams, she is determined to live every day with as much purpose and positivity as she can.
Thalassemia is the disease that has caused Rehab to experience an exhaustingly difficult lifetime of weakness, fatigue, accelerated pulse, and other physical and emotional duress. The disease deprives her reduced red blood count of oxygen, and she also suffers from hemochromatosis, or iron overload, that can cause serious organ damage and potentially death.
Keeping the doors open at Yemen’s Al Mukalla Hospital
8 February 2023 – WHO is partnering with the Government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to ensure that pregnant mothers and newborns keep receiving vital and often life-saving care.
The Al Mukalla Hospital is the only public hospital providing obstetrics, gynecology, newborn care services in the seaport city of Al Mukalla, Yemen’s sixth-largest city. Public access to essential health services in the city has been continuously impacted by surrounding conflict since 2015. Meanwhile, the yearly number of births at the Al Mukalla Hospital has averaged between 4,000 and 7,000 from 2019 to 2022. The hospital is also a referral and medical training facility for Yemen’s largest governorate, Hadramaut, and its four surrounding governorates of Shabwah, Al-Mahrah, Sayoun, and Socotra.
Enhancing critical care capacities in Yemen
Sana’a, 15 January 2023 – The COVID-19 pandemic drew attention to weaknesses in critical and intensive care capacities in Yemen and other countries. To ensure hospitals are better equipped to meet these needs in the future, WHO and the authorities in Yemen, with support from the World Bank, are working hard to strengthen the health system and to build back better as part of the Yemen COVID-19 Response Project (YCRP).
In June 2022, WHO launched a nine-week National Critical Care Training (NCCT) in Aden to build specialized skills among 48 doctors and nurses. The second cohort of this training recently concluded in Sana’a, bringing together 70 health workers (29% female) (28 doctors and 52 nurses) from public hospitals in 10 northern governorates.
The participants were selected through a competitive process, with a written test administered by WHO. Following this, the selected participants underwent a pre-course test, where the average score was 45%. Half way through the course, already there was a noticeable improvement in participant skills and knowledge, with the mid-term exam average score of 73%. By the end of the course, the final test score average had increased once more to 80%.
WHO Representative to Yemen, Dr Adham Rashad Ismail Abdel Moneim explained the importance of the training: “the NCCT uses an intensive and hands-on approach to teach frontline health workers life-saving skills. We are now planning to integrate this course into university curricula in Yemen, so that new graduates coming into hospitals, will have these vital competencies.”
One of the participants in Sana’a, Dr Naseer Al-Fahd, an emergency and intensive care physician at Al-Hazm Hospital, who has been practicing in the field for two years, shared his experience: “throughout the two months of the training, we have learned a lot theoretically and practically. We took the new knowledge back with us to our cities, and we were able to practice our skills… A while ago, we received a man who was injured in a car crash. His head and stomach were severely injured, and we had to act quickly. Based on the training we had, we started with securing his airway, stabilizing his blood pressure, conducting an E-FAST, as well as providing him with advanced trauma life support. This training helped us improve our skills to provide better services for patients.”
To maximize the impact of the NCCT, WHO will continue working with the World Bank under the Emergency Human Capital Project (EHCP) to integrate key learning areas from the course into university curricula. WHO will also support the cascading of basic and advanced life support training so that frontline health workers in all governorates of Yemen have the needed know-how to save lives.
Related link
Building a specialized cadre of doctors and nurses to save lives in Yemen
