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 "Aid agencies in Yemen are operating on the basis that community
transmission is taking place across the country," Jens Laerke,
spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA), told a Geneva briefing.
"We hear from many of them that Yemen is really on the brink right
now. The situation is extremely alarming, they are talking about
that the health system has in effect collapsed," he said.
Aid workers report having to turn people away because they do not
have enough medical oxygen or sufficient supplies of personal
protective equipment, Laerke said.
A flight carrying international aid workers landed in Aden on
Thursday as air space opened up for rotations, but Yemeni nationals
have been doing most of the on-site work, he said.
The main coronavirus treatment centre in southern Yemen has recorded
at least 68 deaths in just over two weeks, Medecins Sans Frontieres
(Doctors Without Borders), the medical charity running the site,
said on Thursday.
The figure - more than double the toll announced by Yemeni
authorities so far - suggested "a wider catastrophe unfolding in the
city", MSF said. [L8N2D33M3]
War-ravaged Yemen, whose malnourished population has among the
world's lowest immunity levels to disease, is divided between the
Saudi-backed government based in Aden and its foe, the Iran-aligned
Houthi group, in the north.
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Yemeni authorities have reported 184 coronavirus infections including 30 deaths
to the World Health Organization (WHO), the latest WHO figures showed overnight.
"The actual incidence is almost certainly much higher," Laerke said.
The United Nations estimates that it will seek $2 billion for Yemen to maintain
aid programmes through year-end, he added.
Laerke, noting that the world body and Saudi Arabia will co-host a virtual
pledging conference in 10 days, said: "It is very, very critical that the
international community steps up now and at the pledging conference on the 2nd
of June, because we are heading towards a fiscal cliff.
"If we do not get the money coming in, the programmes that are keeping people
alive, are very much essential to fighting back against COVID, will have to
close," he said.
"And then the world will have to witness in a country what happens without a
functioning health system battling COVID. I do not think the world wants to see
that."
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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