Unvaccinated Children in Yemen
My head is going to explode. This article says the children of al-Jawf provence were not immunized in the last round of immunizaitons. This is the provence where some residents were recently evacuated for being suspected Houthi supporters. The article also says there is a cholera outbreak (caused by dirty water) causing the deaths of 14 children and another 50 infected. The Health Ministry didnt react. Also two hospitalized women were killed when they recieved oxygen suitiable for metal workshops. BTW there’s four million children in Yemen under the age of five. Estimates are half are physically stunted from malnurition by their fifth birthday and 11% don’t live to their fifith birthday.
SANA’A – An estimated 14 children have died in Al-Jawf governorate from cholera, according to local reports. The Epidemic Monitoring Program has registered 63 cases of others with symptoms of the disease. Sheikh Ali Al-Ajji, chairman of the Social Committee in the governorate’s local council, held the Minister of Health accountable for the children’s death and the spread of the disease. The deaths were as a result of the unavailability of medicines, medical equipment, and medical staff, he added.
“We informed the Ministry of the disease’s outbreak,” Al-Ajji said. “However, the Ministry did not show react to this, and even the test results obtained by the Central Medical Laboratory were not publicized, even though six days had passed since the outbreak had began.
He added:“The medical team were supposed to come from the Ministry in Sana’a came too late, and had the excuse of that it was ‘routine procedures’, saying that the medicine order had to be given to the store managers before the medicine was given out.”The governorate lacks medical equipment and staff as well as necessary levels of health care, he added, and the authorities deal with the governorate as if it were outside Yemeni borders.
He mentioned the deaths of two women in the Government Hospital in Al-Jawf, who were given oxygen usually used in metal workshops rather than the medical oxygen they needed.In a press statement, the Deputy Minister of Public Health Majeed Al-Jonaid said that the ministry has sent a team to the infected region, and that samples were taken for tests at the Central Sana’a Laboratory.
Al-Jonaid said that the ministry had received reports which indicated that the epidemic was cholera, and that the ministry had sent the team and medicines to control it.
“We received reports that ten children have died and another 38 are infected with the epidemic, and they are currently receiving the required treatment by the team,” he said.Yasin Abdul-Warath, a ministry advisor and head of the team, said that the efforts of the team had resulted in minimizing the spread of the epidemic among children who are under five years old.
He added that there are 51 infected children, including three serious cases, but that others had started to recover.According to the Al-Nas weekly newspaper, the campaign for immunization against polio was launched in all governorates on Sunday January 29. However, the governorate of Al-Jawf was excluded and no medical teams were distributed in the governorate to immunize children.
People in Al-Jawf appealed to civil and international health to ensure that the ministry did its duty to immunize their children.
The director of the Epidemic Control Department in the ministry, Dr. Abdul-Hakim Al-Kohlani, said that the reasons for the dysentery was dirty water and pollution, saying that the ministry would take all measures to protect residents from this epidemic.
However, the real reason of spreading this epidemic in Al-Jawf and other regions in the country was a lack of good health conditions for children.He pointed out that the citizens did not care about cleanness of water resources and foods of their children.
Hussein Abu Hadrah, a health official in the eastern border area, urged the government to work quickly to save the life of hundreds of children who might be infected with this epidemic.
He confirmed 14 children have died due to this epidemic, and that there were 63 other serious cases.The epidemic has been spreading in the Khab and Shath areas of Al-Jawf governorate for the past two weeks. Hadrah said he was sad at the delay by the Ministry of Health in combating the epidemic. He said that he had contacted the deputy minister.
