Lives of 3,000 at risk due to lack of medicines in Yemen

YemenExtra

SH.A.
Lack of cancer drugs and chemotherapy medication is threatening the lives of more than 3,000 cancer patients in the central Yemeni governorate of Ibb.

Director of Al-Amal Oncology Center in Ibb, Dr. Baleegh Taweel, said 50 per cent of the anti-cancer drugs and chemotherapy medication in the center have finished and no alternative is available, adding that the total number of cancer patients in the governorate reached 3,150 people, including 400 children and 800 displaced people from other governorates.

The centre receives about 50 patients per day, Al-Taweel said, stressing that patients suffer from extremely difficult humanitarian conditions due to the center receiving only intermittent support.

Al-Taweel said the Oncology Center has accumulated debts of $40,000 to pharmacies, radiology centers and laboratories.

He called on the official authorities in the country, international humanitarian organisations, local institutions, businessmen and philanthropists to donate and help provide the necessary assistance to the centre, to save the lives of patients.

Yemen is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis with more than 22 million people in need and is seeing a spike in needs, a number of Western countries, the US, the UK, and France in particular, are accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.