19 August 2024 – Navigating rough roads and being chased by wild animals are among the challenges health workers face when reaching vulnerable people in Yemen’s remote villages.
The deterioration of the health system amid Yemen’s ongoing acute humanitarian crisis has resulted in many people being denied access to health care. They are dying from conditions that are easily treatable in other contexts.
In Lahj, a remote district in southern Yemen, internally displaced people and host communities face harsh circumstances. The problems caused by poverty and challenging weather conditions are compounded by the spread of diseases such as measles, dengue and COVID-19. This remote area lacks health services, and travel to the nearest health facility is expensive, out of most people’s reach.
To address critical health needs and protect the most vulnerable, WHO and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) teamed up to implement public health outreach activities. Children and pregnant women were the main target groups. Integrated services spanned essential health care for childhood illnesses, malnutrition, reproductive health services, COVID-19 vaccination and measles, rubella and polio vaccination for children.
Between April 2023 and March 2024, over 9305 mobile health teams were deployed. The teams treated more than 22 000 children and 23 000 women across 107 districts, identifying critical health needs and providing life-saving interventions.
To save vulnerable lives, health workers travelled from village to village.
Hana’a Awadh, a 36-year-old health worker, faced incredible challenges reaching communities in need, travelling with her mobile team for many hours in temperatures above 45 °C.
“The journeys were arduous,” she explains. “We travelled along tough roads but the vehicles can only take us so far. Then we must walk through terrain populated by wild animals such as dogs and snakes where there is hardly any shelter.”
Before joining the mobile team, Hana’a was a nurse at Al Fiosh Health Centre’s therapeutic feeding centre in Lahj where she identified malnutrition cases aged 6 months to 5 years and after measuring the mid-upper arm circumference would prescribe treatment as needed.
Efforts to overcome vaccine hesitancy
The mobile teams included health educators who play a vital role in efforts to overcome vaccine hesitancy, countering rumours and ensuring community acceptance of vaccinations.
The health educators visited homes to address concerns, dispel rumors and hand out educational materials in the form of flyers and stickers, highlighting the objective benefits of the outreach activity and how it could support families.
“This contributed to a notable increase in families’ acceptance. We offer services that would otherwise be inaccessible due to high transportation costs,” says Hana’a.
Health educators in the outreach activity explained to people why it is vital to get vaccinations, and how they risk lives by rejecting them.
It took the threat of losing of her child for Noor to realize how crucial vaccinations are. Noor, the mother of a young boy, and her family were fearful of vaccinations because of the rumours claiming vaccinations are harmful that had spread locally.
“You will kill your child! Each time I mentioned vaccinations, this was what I heard,” explained Noor. “But I was watching him get sicker each day.”
“I feel sorry for the times I believed those who told me that vaccinations were harmful. This belief nearly cost my son’s life,” says Noor.
“He was about to die, and I wanted to die after him. Thankfully, I listened to the doctors and got him vaccinated, and gained him back. Now I’m an advocate for vaccinations.”
