WHO initiative to increase COVID-19 vaccination rates in Yemen

The World Health Organization will invest USD 2.8 million over six months to increase immunization coverage for the COVID-19 vaccine in southern Yemen from 5% to 10%.

In collaboration with Saudi Arabia's King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief), the WHO is collecting and distributing COVID-19 vaccines along with supplies to districts and healthcare facilities in collaboration with WHO, as well as training and deploying COVID-19 vaccination teams to immunization locations in these Yemen governorates as well as districts.

Temporary immunization sites are smaller institutions in certain locations; permanent immunization sites are major hospitals and health institutes. The outreach along with mobile teams will be on the ground to target difficult-to-reach communities.

The World Health Organization monitors vaccines, their safety, cold storage as well as service delivery locations for adequate storage and temperature management. Among the key goals should be implementing the standard WHO COVAX planning criteria, training healthcare personnel on how to dispense the COVID-19 vaccine, and establishing relationships with the population.

To preserve the country's general safety, most Yemenis should be inoculated against the COVID-19 virus and casualties. So far, 886,644 people have received the two Sinovac doses (144), the Janssen vaccination (572,495), or two AstraZeneca doses (312,025).

In the country of Yemen, the WHO and UNICEF are trying to strengthen the cold chain along with vaccination management technologies to meet both international and national standards. 

Third-party monitoring and centralized management ensure that vaccinations are stored and monitored appropriately at all service delivery and storage locations. Another benefit of the World Health Organization's cold chain is that it is regularly monitored for faults and fixed as they develop.

The project budget of USD 2.8 million includes all activities except vaccination procurement, individual protective kits, prevention of infection and control equipment, safety containers, syringes, and containers for secure waste collection at vaccination administration sites.

The WHO Representative in Yemen, Adham Rashad Ismail Abdl-Moneim, stated: "The Yemeni population has suffered four phases of COVID, and the country's inadequate health-care facilities and system have not kept up with the disease's rapid growth. We are thankful to KSrelief for their assistance at this critical time, as we persist to battle the epidemic alongside the Ministry of Public Health and Population as well as all of our Yemeni partners."