In Yemen, its people are still experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises resulting from a protracted nine-year conflict. In a country of 32 million, over half need humanitarian assistance, 4.5 million are displaced and around 17.8 million are in desperate need of health services.
There is a critical shortage of essential medicines and health workers, and only half of health facilities are functioning. With so many pressing health problems such as malnutrition and death from common treatable illness, other significant and damaging threats to health get neglected.
Targeting non-communicable diseases (NCDs)
NCDs including diabetes, hypertension and cardio-vascular disease, chronic respiratory diseases and cancers, amongst others, are responsible for 74% of all deaths globally and cause immeasurable suffering. Nearly 500 million people in the world live with diabetes and almost 80% of these live in low- and middle-income countries such as Yemen. Over 70% go untreated because the health systems are not equipped to respond, and communities are not always aware of how to reduce their own health risks or to prevent or reduce the impact of NCDs.
A new programme
That is why this World Health Day we are very excited to announce that we are working in partnership with Sanofi’s Global Health Unit in Yemen’s Taiz Governorate, a mountainous region of 3.2 million people, to start to address these damaging but neglected health problems. As well as leveraging Sanofi’s Global Health Unit’s expertise in increasing access to healthcare, we are also working with Primary Care International who bring valuable skills and experience in in developing and delivering training for health workers on NCDs.
Our innovative programme will improve the prevention, identification and treatment of NCDs such as diabetes, directly supporting over 79,000 children and adults during the programme and equipping government health services to improve capacity, systems and care for the wider population across the Governorate. It will focus on increasing skills, awareness, and use of data, taking a pragmatic approach to enable the fragmented health system to respond in a joined-up way. It will also empower patients to better manage their own condition and communities to make more informed choices within the many constraints that they endure.
The majority of people with NCDs are adults but the origins often lie in childhood. Children of parents with diabetes and other NCDs are often affected by the poor health of their parents, many trapped in poverty by a reduced ability to work and health care costs.
Continued neglect of NCDs in Yemen and many counties undermines efforts to help the population stay healthy, both now and in the future, which is why the World Health Organisation and the Yemeni government are very supportive of this important step towards translating the aspiration of national NCD strategies into daily reality.
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