Aden | Yemen, a country at war and the scene of a large-scale humanitarian disaster, received a first batch of COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday, through the Covax mechanism, shortly after a recommendation to establish the “state of ‘health emergency’ due to the rapid spread of the coronavirus.
This shipment of 360,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in Aden (south), the provisional capital of the government recognized by the international community, and is part of the program of “1.9 million doses that Yemen should receive in 2021”, a announced the United Nations agency for children (Unicef) in a press release.
The cargo is notably accompanied by 1.3 million syringes, according to the same source.
“The arrival of vaccines against Covid-19 comes at a critical time for Yemen,” said Philippe Duamelle, representative of Unicef in the country, quoted in a press release.
“This shipment represents an important step in the fight against COVID-19 in Yemen”, added Adham Ismaïl, representative of the World Health Organization (WHO), associated with the Covax mechanism intended to supply vaccines to the most poor.
Alarm call
This delivery comes a few days after the alarm call launched by Médecins sans frontières (MSF) regarding the rapid spread of the disease in Yemen.
“MSF is seeing a very strong influx of seriously ill Covid-19 patients requiring hospitalization, in Aden (south) and in many other regions of the country,” the NGO tweeted on Saturday.
“The sharp increase in Covid-19 cases in recent weeks is extremely alarming and worrying,” Raphael Veicht, MSF head of mission in Yemen, stressed in a statement.
He called on humanitarian organizations to “rapidly step up their emergency response to COVID-19” and greater support from international donors.
“Unfortunately, many of the patients we see are already in critical condition when they arrive,” noted Line Lootens, MSF medical coordinator in Yemen.
According to her, their care is “technically difficult and requires a very high level of care”.
However, as the NGO recalled, Yemen’s capacity to treat people in intensive care is “limited”, due to a health system that collapsed with the war ravaging the country.
A conflict for more than six years has opposed the government, supported by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, to the Houthi rebels, supported by Iran, and plunged Yemen into the worst humanitarian crisis currently in the world according to the UN.
The Supreme National Emergency Committee, an internationally recognized government body responsible for combating the epidemic, on Tuesday called on the government to declare a “state of health emergency” and to impose a “partial curfew” in the face of a “Second wave” of the pandemic.
Yemen is currently registering around 100 new cases every day, many more than at the start of the crisis which seemed to have spared the country cut off from the rest of the world.
Experts believe, however, that the numbers are actually much larger, due to the lack of available tests.
The country of about 30 million inhabitants has officially recorded 4,115 cases of infections, including 863 deaths.