Yemen health system at 'breaking point': WHO

The escalating fighting in Yemen is pushing the country's health system to "breaking point", the World Health Organization said Tuesday, warning that diseases like cholera were already circulating widely. A renewed ground campaign waged by the Iran-backed Houthis against Yemen's Saudi-backed government forces has left hundreds dead and is deepening the country's humanitarian crisis, with at least 145,000 people displaced this month alone, United Nations figures show. And the country's health system -- already weakened by over a decade of civil war -- is on the brink. "Yemen's latest escalation is pushing an already fragile health system towards breaking point," warned Annette Heinzelmann, WHO's emergency director for the eastern Mediterranean region. Speaking to reporters in Geneva via video link from Cairo, she highlighted how insecurity, damaged infrastructure, displacement of health workers, shortages of medicines and medical supplies and limited access to swathes of Yemen's west coast were preventing many from receiving the services they need. "Nine health facilities or assets have now been damaged, put out of service, closed or directly attacked" in the hard-hit areas of Taiz, Lahj and Hodeidah, Heinzelmann said. At the same time, "comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care has been suspended in two hospitals in Marib and Ras Al-Arah because staff and operating capacity have been redirected to trauma care for the incoming wounded," she pointed out. Even before the latest escalation, only around 60 percent of Yemen's health facilities were fully functional, Heinzelmann added. And the country had been facing high malnutrition and outbreaks of diseases like cholera "already circulating on a large scale", she said. Since the start of this year, Yemen has tallied nearly 8,000 suspected cholera cases, including 22 deaths, and more than 9,600 dengue cases, including 37 people who had died, according to the WHO. And "measles is particularly concerning, with more than 22,000 suspected cases and 128 deaths reported this year", Heinzelmann said. Now, amidst severe overcrowding in some areas, unsanitary conditions and limited healthcare access, the WHO is bracing for more and bigger disease outbreaks. "When we see population movements, people living in really... an overcrowded setting with limited access to water and safe sanitation, these are factors which can support a wider spread of cholera," Heinzelmann said. The UN health agency said it had delivered nearly 60 tonnes of medical supplies to 40 facilities across 10 Yemen governorates. "But several lifesaving supply lines in WHO's Aden warehouse are already at zero stock, including trauma kits and essential medicines," Heinzelmann said, appealing for more funding. WHO had so far secured only $2 million of the $9 million it needed for its response, she said. nl/rjm/pdw