Millions of Yemenis Are Disease-prone Due to Failing Health System
Local Editor
Stricken under brutal Saudi aggression, Yemen is suffering from a deepening health crisis, the World Health Organization [WHO] warned, adding that lack of funds is putting millions of Yemenis at risk of disease and malnutrition.
Nevio Zagaria, WHO's acting representative in Yemen, said in a statement on Thursday that nearly 15 million Yemenis lacked access to essential health services.
"With more than 14.8 million people lacking access to basic healthcare, the current lack of funds means the situation will get much worse," media outlets quoted Zagaria as saying.
The official added that about 4.5 million Yemenis, including 2 million children, need assistance in treating or preventing malnutrition, a 150-percent increase since late 2014.
"We urgently need resources to help support the health system as a whole, and are calling on donors to scale up their support before more innocent lives are lost unnecessarily," Zagaria noted.
According to the world body, only 45 percent of Yemen's health facilities are fully functional and accessible.
According to WHO, highly-specialized medical staff have left the country, and the health workers that have remained have not received regular salaries since September.
Meanwhile, lack of money forced al-Tharwa hospital in the Red Sea port of Hudaydah to stop providing food to its patients. The hospital is the main functioning health facility in the region.
"There are acute shortages of certain medicines and we need more fuel to ensure the hospital has electricity," the hospital director, Khaled Suhail, said in a statement.
Suhail added that he did not know if the hospital would be open in a month's time.
Last year, UN agencies received less than 60 percent of their appeal for USD 182 million to support Yemen's health sector.
Earlier this month, the UN World Food Program [WFP] warned that an estimated 7.3 million people were in need of immediate food aid across Yemen.
Saudi Arabia has been incessantly pounding Yemen since March 2015 in a bid to reinstall the country's former government and crush the Ansarullah revolutionaries.
The Saudi military aggression claimed the lives of over 11,400 Yemenis, including women and children, according to figures released by local Yemeni groups.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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