Friend: What Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams are seeing on the ground in Yemen is a health system in ruin. Six years of war caused the country’s health care infrastructure to collapse, leaving large areas with no capacity to respond to the spread of COVID-19.

The COVID-19 treatment center run by MSF at al-Kuwait hospital is one of very few places in Yemen where care is available for free to COVID-19 patients. Many people come to us from different regions like Hajjah, Al-Mahwit, and Hodeidah, which can take between three and six hours by car.

Compounding the issue is a lack of information from authorities in the northern region of the country, leaving many to decide for themselves how seriously to take COVID-19, and what to do if they or their loved one gets sick.

Our team is supporting the COVID-19 treatment center at Al Gamhouria hospital in Aden, helping to care for patients in ICU and working around the clock to respond to other needs.

To adequately address the COVID-19 pandemic in Yemen, MSF is going beyond providing vital care. We are also speaking out on multiple fronts:

• We’re calling on the international humanitarian community to immediately resume operations in areas of Yemen most affected by the pandemic;
• We’re calling on the Biden Administration and drug manufacturers to do more to facilitate the production of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines worldwide.

Learn more about the situation in Yemen and what we’re doing to help.