Today, Saturday, a Yemeni government official warned of the re-emergence of polio in the country after 14 years that Yemen was declared free of the virus causes the disease.
Abdul Raqeeb Al-Haidari, Assistant Undersecretary for the Yemeni Ministry of Health, , tweeted that polio has reappeared in Saada and Hajjah governorates in Yemen.
He added that "the Houthis, a Shiite group rebel, have banned the polio vaccine in the two governorates for many times.
The Yemeni official considered that the reappearance of the virus is a new challenge to Yemen, affirming that the Houthi group is responsible for spreading the disease in the stricken areas. He called on the international community to assume its responsibility towards this great danger.
A medical source in the National Salvation Government, formed from the Houthi group in Sanaa, reported that 16 cases of polio virus infection were recorded in Saada Governorate.
However, the United Nations (UN) announced last Friday, in a joint statement issued by the Regional Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Eastern Mediterranean, Ahmed Al-Mandhari, and the director the Regional United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in the Middle East and North Africa, Ted Chaiban, reports on outbreaks of polio in Yemen.
The statement said that the mutated polio cases that were recently confirmed in Yemen and Sudan are one of the consequences of the increasingly low levels of immunity among children."
The statement went on to say that each wave of the outbreak led to paralysis in children in areas where it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to provide them with routine or supplementary polio vaccinations.
The regional conflicts deprive children of vaccination for long periods of time.
Al-Haidari stated that cases in Yemen are gathering in Saada Governorate, which suffers from very low levels in terms of routine vaccination. He noted that the polio eradication program has not reached it for more than two years.
According to the World Health Organization, polio is a highly contagious viral disease that invades the nervous system and is capable of causing complete paralysis within hours of time.
It is transmitted by spreading from person to person, mainly through faeces, and to a lesser extent, by a common means (such as contaminated water or food).
The pathogen multiplies in the intestine, and one in 200 cases of infection leads to terminal paralysis (usually affecting the legs).
In 2006, Yemen was declared free of polio, which primarily affects children under the age of five, after the health authorities carried out 6 vaccination campaigns.
On the other hand, the United Nations (UN) has warned that Yemen is facing a health catastrophe due to the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).
A UN statement points out gaps in the organization's funding threatening to suspend critical relief programs in the country.
Robert Colville, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), said during a press briefing held days before in Geneva, Switzerland, that the world organization has deep concern at the fragile health situation in Yemen.
Colville warns that the country's health care system is "on the verge of collapse."
The UN official stressed that 24 million people in Yemen need immediate humanitarian aid, stressing that hospitals in Yemen are no longer receiving people who have symptoms of the Coronavirus due to a lack of beds, medicines, medical personnel and clean water.
He suggested that the true number of cases of the Coronavirus in Yemen exceeds significantly the official toll that has so far reached 591 cases, indicating that the disease sweeps mainly in the northern areas under the control of the Houthi group which is known locally as "Ansar Allah-ardent supporters of Allah."
"We have fears of losing very large numbers of lives, not only because of" COVID-19 ", but also due to malaria, cholera, dengue and other diseases."
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