Health care system collapses as COVID-19 races across Yemen
As the United Nations appeals for $2 billion in emergency funding for Yemen, aid organizations on the ground warn community transmission of the coronavirus is taking place throughout the war-torn country.
Yemen’s health care system has reportedly collapsed as cash-strapped aid agencies scale back basic services amid the country’s fast-spreading COVID-19 outbreak, the United Nations reported Friday.
“Aid agencies in Yemen are operating on the basis that community transmission is taking place across the country,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“We hear from many of them that Yemen is really on the brink right now. The situation is extremely alarming; they are talking about that the health system has in effect collapsed,” he told a UN briefing in Geneva.
A five-year-long war pitting a Saudi-led military coalition against the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels has devastated the country’s health care system. Half of all hospitals are not functioning, and those that remain operational suffer from severe shortages of medicine and personal protective equipment.
