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World|life|June 2, 2015 / 04:52 PM
Yemen doctors warn of crisis as medical supplies run low

AKIPRESS.COM - Two months of war have devastated Yemen’s health sector, aggravating a humanitarian crisis by depriving millions of urgent medical care and threatening outbreaks of diseases like polio and measles, according to doctors and aid organisations, reports The Guardian.

Medicines, vaccines and basic medical supplies are running desperately low, while hospitals are scaling back services or closing, they say. Increasingly, they note, medical facilities are being attacked by warring militias and bombed by a Saudi Arabian-led coalition, which launched an air war against Shia insurgents, known as Houthis, in late March. “Yemen’s health system is nearing collapse,” said Marie-Elisabeth Ingres, who heads Yemen operations for Médecins sans Frontières.

The nation of more than 25 million people already struggled with grinding poverty and lack of access to basic healthcare before the start of the air campaign, which has fuelled fighting on the ground between Houthis and forces aligned with Yemen’s now exiled president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. In February, Shia militants toppled Hadi’s government in assaults that continue throughout the country. Saudi Arabia accuses the Houthis of being proxies of its enemy, Shia Iran – a charge denied by the militant group.

Though aid workers are unable to obtain precise data because of the fighting, Ingres noted that the crisis has produced an unspecified, but probably increasing, number of preventable deaths. This includes a four-year-old boy in a northern province who was unable to receive medical treatment for tonsillitis, Ingres said. “We are quite sure people are left to die in their homes because they aren’t able to receive treatment,” she said.

Since late March 2,000 people have been killed and 8,000 wounded. During that period, the number of people who require urgent medical care has surged to 8.6 million, the World Health Organisation said in a statement released last week. But such care is increasingly scarce because of an inability to access even basics, like obstetrical support during childbirth, the statement said. The WHO also notes that a national programme to fight tuberculosis has been suspended and that “infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever are spreading. Outbreaks of polio and measles are also serious risks.”

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