No Script

Please Wait...

Al-Ahed Telegram

Covid-19 in Yemen: Another Reason for Death

Covid-19 in Yemen: Another Reason for Death
folder_openYemen access_time3 years ago
starAdd to favorites

By Staff, Agencies

Local health officials revealed that hundreds of people in Aden, southern Yemen’s main city, have died in the past week with symptoms of what appears to be the coronavirus.

The officials fear the situation is only going to get worse: Yemen has little capacity to test those suspected of having the virus and a 5-year-long civil war has left the health system in shambles.

One gravedigger in Aden told AP he’d never seen such a constant flow of dead — even in a city that has seen multiple bouts of bloody street battles during the civil war.

The upswing in suspected COVID-19 cases in Yemen is sounding alarms throughout the global health community, which fears the virus will spread like wildfire throughout the world’s most vulnerable populations such as refugees or those impacted by war.

“If you have a full-blown community transmission in Yemen, because of the fragility, because of the vulnerability, because of the susceptibility, it will be disastrous,” said Altaf Musani, the World Health Organization chief in Yemen.

WHO says its models suggest that, under some scenarios, half of Yemen’s population of 30 million could be infected and more than 40,000 could die.

Half of Yemen’s health facilities are dysfunctional, and 18% of the country’s 333 districts have no doctors. Water and sanitation systems have collapsed. Many families can barely afford one meal a day.

Yemen has no more than 500 ventilators and 700 ICU beds nationwide. There is one oxygen cylinder per month for every 2.5 million people. WHO provided some 6,700 test kits to Yemen, split between north and south, and says another 32,000 are coming. The health agency says it is trying to procure more protective equipment and supplies to fight the virus. But WHO said efforts have been hampered because of travel restrictions and competition with other countries.

The ongoing war pits the Houthis, who occupy the north, against a US and Saudi-backed coalition that formed an internationally recognized government in the south. Now that coalition in the South has fragmented: separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates rose up and expelled the government from southern capital Aden last summer and declared self-rule last month. The two factions are fighting in Abyan, a province adjacent to Aden.

The war has already killed more than 100,000 and displaced millions.

Health personnel, with little protective equipment, are terrified of treating anyone suspected of having the coronavirus.

Many medical facilities in Aden have closed as staffers flee or simply turn patients away.

In Ibb province, a local official said at least 17 people had died. “The situation is very dangerous and out of control,” he said.

In Dhamar, a local medical official said at least 10 suspected coronavirus cases had been hospitalized and at least two people had died. One had come from Sanaa, meaning it was a local transmission.

Comments