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Severely malnourished but resilient
22 September – Hunger is spreading in Yemen after many donor countries have cut back on critical humanitarian aid. At least 60,000 children are now acutely malnourished and require urgent care. One of them is Nuha, who with her mother has endured the extremes of poverty and food insecurity.
Yemen’s intractable political, military, and humanitarian crisis continues to exact a heavy toll on the country’s health system – and on families now facing unrelenting hunger.
Surviving hunger in Yemen
22 September 2022 – Families in Yemen who endure prolonged exposure to armed conflict and grinding poverty are forced to live on the thinnest margins of survival – especially when displaced from their homes and lacking access to food, clean water, and basic nutrition and medical services.
Om Salim confronts the cruel realities of hunger every day as a mother of two young children living in extreme poverty. The family must routinely skip meals, and often has nothing to eat for a day if not longer.
Changing minds and protecting lives in Yemen
12 September 2022 - In Yemen as elsewhere, widespread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines has posed a major public health threat. With support from the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief), WHO has trained more than 1,100 health workers and community volunteers to communicate factual information about the vaccines – prompting many more Yemenis to accept them.
WHO and EU partner to provide Yemenis with emergency medical services
4 September 2022 – The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a 12-month project to sustain the delivery of life-saving emergency health services for the most vulnerable in conflict-affected zones across Yemen thanks to a €2.5 million contribution from the European Union.
The partnership aims to directly assist more than 152,000 Yemenis, including 33,000 children and 30,500 internally displaced people. Seventeen hospitals across Yemen will receive support in four main areas of humanitarian health service delivery: trauma care and emergency care referral services; mental health and psychosocial support; strengthening of the national health information management system; and early response to outbreaks.
“The health care system in Yemen is devastated and on the brink of collapse, while the health needs of the most vulnerable people have increased by 11% overall since 2021,” said Dr Adham Rashad Ismail Abdel-Moneim, WHO Representative to Yemen. “Through this project, and in partnership with EU Humanitarian Aid, we can better address many of the acute and urgent health needs of the most vulnerable people with a comprehensive range of essential health care services.”
The project will also address trauma care and emergency care referral services, ensuring continued provision of ambulance services, fuel, medical equipment and other supplies as well as training at Yemen’s only pre-hospital system facility, based in Aden city.
“Currently, more than 21.9 million Yemenis lack access to critical health services. Seven years of conflict have not only left the health sector in tatters but have severely depleted people’s resilience. Indiscriminate attacks, food insecurity and disease outbreaks are having a devastating impact on their well-being,” said Janez Lenarčič, European Commissioner for Crisis Management. “One of the EU’s humanitarian priorities in Yemen is to alleviate people’s suffering, both physically and mentally, and ensure they can access quality health care.”
The hospitals supported by this project will benefit from plans to establish mental health units that provide mental health and psychosocial support services and psychotropic medications. Medical and non-medical staff will also be trained to assess and manage mental health disorders of vulnerable groups, including women, children, internally displaced, refugees, migrants and people with disabilities.
Yemen’s fragmented health information system will also receive support to improve information sharing between health partners to ensure informed decision-making and strengthen operational processes in health emergency response. This includes building national capacities to improve and operate the District Health Information Software (DHIS2) data collection system that is hampered by frequent electrical outages and weak internet connectivity.
