WHO seeks $38.8 million to keep Yemen’s fragile health system from unraveling

ADEN, Yemen — The World Health Organization is appealing for $38.8 million to keep basic health services running for millions of people in Yemen this year, warning that without new money, a decade-old health system battered by war, economic collapse and epidemic disease could begin to unravel.

The appeal, launched Feb. 12 from Aden by WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean office, is intended to sustain life-saving care for 10.5 million people in 2026. It comes as aid agencies scale back across the country and the U.N. food agency prepares to halt operations in the rebel-held north, where most Yemenis live and needs are highest.

“Yemen’s health system is stretched to its limits,” said Dr. Syed Jaffar Hussain, WHO’s representative and head of mission in the country. “Without sustained and timely funding, preventable diseases will spread unchecked, health facilities will be forced to scale down services, and the most vulnerable communities will pay the highest price.”

A smaller request amid rising need

WHO’s Yemen request is part of its 2026 Health Emergency Appeal, a global call for funding to address crises in more than 30 countries. For Yemen specifically, the agency is asking for far less than last year, when it sought $57.8 million, even as the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance has risen from 19.5 million in 2025 to 23.1 million this year.

U.N. officials describe the shift as a “humanitarian reset” — a move toward narrower, strictly life-saving interventions as funding falls and access tightens.

Only about 60% of Yemen’s health facilities remain fully functional, WHO and other U.N. agencies say. Many clinics and hospitals that are technically open lack electricity, medicines, staff or fuel for generators. Years of conflict have damaged buildings, pushed health workers to flee or seek other work, and disrupted supply chains for everything from vaccines to basic antibiotics.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that roughly two-thirds of Yemen’s population now needs some form of aid or protection. The 2025 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan was only about 25% funded by the end of last year, forcing agencies to cut or suspend programs in health, nutrition, water and protection.

War’s long shadow on hospitals and clinics

Yemen’s war began in its current phase in 2014, when Houthi forces took over the capital, Sanaa, and later large parts of the north. A Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year to support the internationally recognized government, which is now based in Aden. A U.N.-brokered truce reduced large-scale front line fighting in 2022, but did not resolve deep political, economic and territorial divides.

As the conflict has evolved, so has the crisis inside hospitals and clinics.

WHO says its 2026 appeal is designed to preserve a core package of services:

• Emergency and trauma care
• Maternal and newborn health
• Treatment of severe malnutrition
• Mental health and psychosocial support
• Rapid detection and control of outbreaks such as cholera, measles, dengue and polio

The agency plans to support mobile clinics and emergency surgical teams in hard-to-reach areas; strengthen disease surveillance and laboratory networks; and maintain supplies of essential medicines, vaccines and diagnostic tests. It also coordinates the Health Cluster — the main forum for humanitarian health organizations in Yemen — setting minimum standards for services and trying to avoid gaps as other actors pull out.

“This appeal is not only about responding to emergencies – it is about preserving the foundations of Yemen’s health system and preventing further human suffering,” Hussain said.

Outbreak risks: cholera, measles and polio

Epidemic disease remains one of the most pressing threats.

Yemen has endured the world’s largest modern cholera outbreak, with more than 2.5 million suspected cases and about 4,000 deaths recorded between 2016 and 2021. After a brief lull, suspected cholera surged again in 2024, when health authorities reported around 250,000 cases and more than 850 deaths, accounting for roughly a third of all cholera cases globally that year.

Tens of thousands of additional suspected cholera and acute watery diarrhea cases were recorded in 2025, and WHO has reported new infections and at least one death already in 2026. Health officials say those figures likely understate the true burden because many people in remote or conflict-affected areas never reach a health facility.

Measles has also resurged. In 2024, Yemen reported nearly 39,000 suspected measles cases and more than 300 associated deaths, most among people with no record of vaccination. U.N. agencies estimate there are about 580,000 “zero-dose” children across the country who have not received a single routine vaccine dose.

Alongside measles, Yemen is battling circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2, a rare but serious strain that can emerge where immunization rates are low. WHO and UNICEF are planning campaigns to reach about 1.3 million children under age 5, but those efforts depend on secure funding for vaccines, cold-chain equipment and trained health workers.

Hunger and access constraints compound the crisis

Chronic undernutrition and food insecurity complicate every aspect of the health response. By the end of 2024, U.N. assessments suggested that roughly 600,000 children in Yemen were malnourished, including about 120,000 with severe acute malnutrition, a 34% increase from the previous year. Around 220,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women were also thought to be malnourished.

An analysis of food security for mid-2025 to early 2026 projected that about 17.1 million people — nearly half of Yemen’s population — would face Crisis or worse levels of hunger, with 5.2 million in Emergency conditions and some pockets at risk of sliding into the most extreme phase, classified as Catastrophe or Famine.

Those warnings took on more urgency after the U.N. World Food Program said it would shut down operations in areas under Houthi control in early 2026, citing access restrictions, harassment of staff and lack of funding. Northern governorates account for roughly 70% of Yemen’s humanitarian caseload.

Human rights groups and U.N. officials have raised alarm for months about the shrinking space for aid operations in the north. In 2025, Houthi security forces raided U.N. offices in Sanaa and Hodeida, detaining staff from WHO, WFP, UNICEF and other agencies in actions condemned by international organizations. Human Rights Watch said such detentions and restrictions risk “increasing the humanitarian aid crisis” by forcing agencies to suspend or reduce work.

A global funding downturn

The tightened constraints coincide with a downturn in donor generosity worldwide. When WHO launched its global 2026 emergency appeal on Feb. 3, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that humanitarian health funding in 2025 had fallen below 2016 levels and that the organization had been able to reach only about one-third of the 81 million people it had aimed to support.

“This appeal is a call to stand with people living through conflict, displacement and disaster – to give them not just services, but the confidence that the world has not turned its back on them,” Tedros said at the time. “It is not charity. It is a strategic investment in health and security.”

For Yemen, that investment would mean, in concrete terms, keeping emergency rooms lit, cholera treatment centers supplied with IV fluids and oral rehydration salts, midwives and surgeons paid, and disease surveillance teams able to investigate clusters before they swell into full-blown outbreaks.

WHO officials say the alternative — a scenario in which the appeal is only partially funded — could lead to the closure or downsizing of already fragile facilities, gaps in vaccine supply, and more frequent and deadly epidemics. It could also erode public trust in remaining services and push more people to seek care late, when conditions are harder and more expensive to treat.

The stakes, they argue, extend beyond Yemen’s borders. Persistent cholera, measles and polio outbreaks in a country that sits astride the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden shipping lanes pose risks for neighbors and for global travel and trade.

As of mid-March, there was no public breakdown of how much of the $38.8 million Yemen request had been funded. Early signals from donors and the wider U.N. response suggest that WHO’s health appeal, like Yemen’s broader humanitarian plan, may struggle to attract full support in a crowded global crisis landscape.

For health workers in Yemen, the appeal may determine whether the system bends or breaks.

“Every delay in funding translates into lost opportunities to save lives,” Hussain said. “The decisions taken now will shape not just how many people survive this year’s emergencies, but whether Yemen’s health system has any foundation left to rebuild on when the conflict finally subsides.”