Aid agencies in Yemen forced to shift resources from fighting hunger to cholera – UN

Unless the international community contributes $200 million to address the cholera outbreak in Yemen, the United Nations humanitarian arm will be forced to reprogram more resources tagged for malnutrition in the country already facing famine, a senior official today said.

This unprecedented cholera epidemic would further weaken the resources, and the resilience that people had had over the last two and a half years of this war, Jamie McGoldrick, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen, told journalists in Geneva.



All of this is entirely man-made, as a result of the conflict, Mr. McGoldrick said by phone from Amman, Jordan.



The actual system is in complete collapse, he said.


Agencies have had to use resources which they had programmed otherwise, for example for food security or malnutrition, said Mr. McGoldrick.

UN agency considers shelving cholera vaccine in Yemen


A vaccination way ahead of an outbreak would be useful, but that would imply a huge amount of vaccines, taking into account all the countries where cholera was endemic, Christian Lindmeier, WHO spokesperson, told journalists.

Source: UN News Centre