PRESS RELEASE

---

UN and World Health Organization Call Back Cholera Vaccines Pledged and En Route to Yemen

July 16, 2017 (EIRNS)—The United Nations committee that supervises aid for Yemen, and the World Health Organization, announced July 11 that they are canceling the planned shipment of 1 million doses of a cholera vaccine, which they had earlier pledged to Yemen, set to arrive there this month. The first half-million doses that were en route to the country, will be rerouted to other at-risk countries. A UN spokesman, Jamie McGoldrick, who is in charge of aid to Yemen, said respecting this surprise decision, that there were obstacles to "delivering vaccines in the middle of a conflict that has crippled the country’s health system, and hampered access to some areas," reports the July 11 New York Times.

However, Dr. Abdul Rahim Al-Samie, the general director of the Taiz Goverornate Health Office in Yemen, asserted that the vaccine is quite necessary.

"It is important to protect these others—especially those in governorates not yet involved in this disaster. They could have had a huge, huge impact if vaccination was done early, a few months ago. Even now, though, if [the vaccine is] targeted appropriately and rapidly, I have no doubt that cases would be averted, and lives would be saved,"

al-Samie said, according to Science.