[Peace-discuss] NYT: W.H.O. Likely to Scrap Plan to Ship Cholera Vaccine to Yemen

[Robert Naiman]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/world/middleeast/world-
health-organization-cholera-vaccine-yemen.html

W.H.O. Likely to Scrap Plan to Ship Cholera Vaccine to Yemen
By RICK GLADSTONE
JULY 11, 2017

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday it was unlikely to attempt a
cholera vaccination campaign in Yemen — which would reverse a decision made
a month ago — because the disease’s rampant spread and the ravages of war
there would make such an effort ineffective.

Christian Lindmeier, a spokesman for the organization, told reporters that
the doses of vaccine designated for shipment to Yemen would now probably be
sent to other parts of the world where dangers from cholera lurk.

A decision on the vaccines is not final, he said, but, “There is a
likelihood they will not be used anymore in Yemen and therefore rerouted to
other areas/countries who may need them more urgently right now.”

Mr. Lindmeier’s disclosure, made at a regular news briefing at the United
Nations headquarters complex in Geneva, was a surprise, and it came as the
number of Yemenis afflicted with cholera reached 313,000 and the death toll
from the disease exceeded 1,700.

Diverting the cholera vaccine that was bound for Yemen would undo a
decision made on June 15 by the health organization and some its important
partners to send one million doses of the vaccine to the country.

Aid groups say the outbreak, which began this spring, has been worsened by
the collapse of the public health system in Yemen, where a civil war has
raged for more than two years between a Saudi-led military coalition and
Houthi insurgents backed by Iran, Saudi Arabia’s regional rival.

The war has killed about 10,000 people and created the risk of a widespread
famine in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country.

Cholera, an infectious disease spread by water contaminated with human
waste, can cause fatal dehydration if left untreated.

A vaccination effort in Yemen, Mr. Lindmeier said, is a “difficult approach
because you can’t plan a campaign like you would do in a normal country”
where war and insecurity are absent.

“You basically have to take the security situation into consideration,” he
said in further explaining why the vaccination effort was no longer
regarded as sensible. Medical workers are not even sure what parts of the
country would benefit from it.

With a vaccination campaign, he said, “you need to get ahead of the curve,
ahead of an outbreak.”

The combination of war, displacement, famine risk and cholera have made
Yemen the world’s most acute humanitarian disaster.

The World Health Organization’s new director general, Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia, was scheduled to brief the United Nations Security
Council on the situation in Yemen via a videoconference on Wednesday.

===

Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1 <(202)%20448-2898>

Amend NDAA to End U.S. Aid to Saudi War in Yemen
https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/to-stop-cholera-famine?r_by=1135580
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