The Yemeni internationally-recognized government on Sunday appealed for UN and international agencies to support its efforts in the face of COVID-19 and other pandemics in the southern port city of Aden.
At a press conference in the Yemeni embassy in Riyadh, the two Yemeni ministers of local administration (Abdul Raqeeb Fateh) and of health (Nasser Ba Aum) unveiled humanitarian developments in the war-torn country.
Earlier on Sunday, the official government-run anti-coronavirus supreme national committee (SNC) said six more COVID-19 infections, including two deaths, had been recorded in the eastern port city of Mukalla, bringing the total to 132 cases including 21 deaths.
In the interim capital of Aden, 89 people died of dengue fever, malaria and COVID-19, health authorities said, with total deaths topping 800 since the beginning of this May.
KSRelief has sent medical and protective supplies and allocated US$ 3.5 million in urgent aid to Yemen's health sector, said Minister Fateh, noting that Saudi Arabia had pledged US$ 25 million to fight COVID-19 in the country.
He accused the Houthis of hiding the real figure of COVID-19 infections in northern areas under their control, as this blackout "would lead to a grave catastrophe affecting everyone."
The LC minister, also chairman of official relief committee, called on the international community to pressure the Houthis into publicizing the real cases lest the epidemic disaster gets too hard to counter.
He also called on the WHO to reveal data it has on confirmed infections in Houthi-held areas, as "accepting this situation means approving the denial deliberately adopted by the militias .. and makes the organization accomplice to the Houthi crime against Yemenis."
In Saturday, the Yemeni government blamed the Southern Transitional Council for pandemics and deteriorated health conditions in Aden and other southern governorates.
On his part, the Yemeni health minister said his government has, since last March, budgeted some 6 billion Yemeni rials to support health system in liberated provinces.
It is the government's priority in the next stage to call on the international community to urgently provide Yemen's health sector with supplies needed to protect health workers as fighting COVID-19, Minister Ba Aum told reporters.
The Yemeni health system is in need of ventilators, PCR and a complete biological unit.
