Yemen's exhausted health care system requires an injection of additional funds from the United Nations and other donors to ensure that medical personnel is adequately paid, protected and equipped to battle the coronavirus outbreak, representatives of Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th May, 2020) Yemen's exhausted health care system requires an injection of additional funds from the United Nations and other donors to ensure that medical personnel is adequately paid, protected and equipped to battle the coronavirus outbreak, representatives of Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) told Sputnik.
"The United Nations and donor states need to step up their response to COVID-19 in Yemen by providing money to pay health care workers and organizing the supply of the personal protective equipment [PPE] necessary to keep them safe. The country also badly needs more oxygen concentrators to help sick patients breathe," Marc Schakal, MSF Deputy Operations Manager for Yemen, told Sputnik.
Yemen's testing capacity for COVID-19 is also "very, very limited," which Schakal said means that "it is not possible to know the true extent of its spread."
"Already in need of substantial humanitarian aid this year, Yemen will need additional funds to treat people for coronavirus and contain its spread. The international community should increase its funding to Yemen to meet the growing humanitarian needs," Samah Hadid, Oxfam's Director of Advocacy for Yemen, told Sputnik.
According to the humanitarian officials, helping Yemen also requires an effort by the Yemeni authorities to secure unimpeded access of assistance to people and organizations in need on the ground.
"The local authorities need to do all they can to facilitate the work of international organizations like MSF who are working with them to respond to the virus, and facilitate the entry of medical supplies and international staff to reinforce teams on the ground," MSF's Schakal said.
Oxfam's Hadid, in turn, called the warring Yemeni authorities to adhere to a long-term ceasefire, saying that "the destruction of health facilities and the disruption in delivering aid caused by fighting is making communities more vulnerable to the pandemic."
The specificity of life in Yemen after five years of war, especially in camps for displaced people, makes social distancing a real challenge, according to both officials.
As described by MSF's Schakal, people in Yemen often live with many family members in small spaces and many cannot afford to just stay home as they need to earn for a living, while camps for the displaced often lack basic sanitary amenities for residents to practice healthy habits such as frequent hand washing.
As of Tuesday, 132 cases of the coronavirus infection were confirmed in Yemen and 21 people have died, according to the latest situation report by the World Health Organization.
