From the frontlines to the hospitals..Houthi kills children
English - Wednesday 19 October 2022 الساعة 09:32 am
Sana'a, NewsYemen, Hadeel Muhammad:
Rapidly, the health situation continues to deteriorate since the Houthi terrorist militia took control of state institutions in Sanaa and a number of governorates, with a wide spread of deadly epidemics. Since its takeover of the state, the militia has neglected health services, stopped immunization campaigns, prevented the entry of vaccines, and helped enter spoiled and expired medicines.
Thursday, after the failure of the Ministry of Health affiliated to Tehran’s arm in Yemen, in its attempts to cover up the crime that shook public opinion with the death of 21 children (leukemia patients) out of 45 children in Sana’a, according to identical sources, after they were injected with corrupted medicine, and the ministry has been silent for more than 3 weeks about In the crime, the Houthi ministry admitted the death of 10 of the 19 children it said were “injected with smuggled and expired medicines in Kuwait Hospital,” blaming the causes of this disaster for what the ministry statement called aggression.
Observers considered this an attempt by the militia to evade legal and moral responsibility for this crime, and to cover up its followers, agents and drug dealers involved in the crime. This is also what human rights organizations considered an attempt to evade responsibility, an unethical attempt to evade and an attempt to throw charges before conducting any impartial investigation, stressing that this matter raises serious questions about the reliability of the information provided by the Houthi group.
Pharmaceutical sources revealed to "Newsyemen" that the drug "methotrexate" that the children were injected with, and its agent in Sana'a is the (Brothers Pharma) company, and it is produced by the Indian company (Cylon Lab), which is known to manufacture cheap medicines that do not conform to specifications, and it is officially imported by Houthi drug agents in Sana'a, not smuggled as the militia claimed.
Houthi MP Abdo Bishr called on the Houthi Political Council to dismiss the Minister of Health in Sanaa, and to transfer him with those who caused this crime to trial, adding in his blog post, "It is enough recklessness and absurdity and falsehood."
Dr. Rafiq Al-Sharabi confirms that "if this crime occurred in any respectable country, there would be no health minister, no agents, no hospital director, or doctors left in their positions," adding, "The last time the diphtheria vaccine passed without an account," he wonders, "How can treatment be smuggled and his authorized agent is in Sana'a?"
Dr. Noha Al-Areeqi says: “I thought that the Houthis Ministry of Health was embarrassed to appear, what would it appear to say to the people, sorry or what, but I discovered that the Minister of Health came to Kuwait Hospital with cold blood saying that we formed committees to follow up the children’s condition to improve their health status and we are working on that 24 hours, and it's as if the issue of 21 children who died is not important."
And she added, "Finally, the minister touched on the issue and said we hold the countries of the aggression responsible because because of the blockade we are entering smuggled medicines."
Dr. Noha Al-Areeqi asked the Houthi minister, "If he is in a siege, do you have the right to inject children with expired medicine without supervision because of the siege and does the siege prevent anyone who has a hand in the crime from being tried?"
And about the level of health care under the militia’s control, an escort of one of the patients at Al-Thawra Hospital in Sana’a speaks (he refused to give his name) and says, “The intensive care unit in the hospital does not contain sterilization materials, and anyone who talks about this matter is considered to be a danger to patients, and threatens him to expel his patient to the street and tell him we have any sterilization supplies, so we can’t provide you, it was better for you to go to a private hospital." He added, "Anyone can go to the hospital and he will be assured of the correctness of what we say."
In 2016, the armed Houthi militia prevented the World Health Organization (WHO) from launching a campaign to vaccinate children against cholera in the areas under its control, and asked the international organization, instead of the vaccination and vaccination campaign, to provide specific medicines to treat their wounded, claiming that they were in a state of emergency of war and fighting and that they do not need such medicines for vaccines, which led to the death of 2,275 cases of cholera recorded by the organization that year, and the vaccination doses allocated to the militia-controlled governorates were directed to South Sudan.
The Iranian arm in Yemen continued to fight immunization and vaccination campaigns, and launched a campaign of warnings in 2018 against the vaccination campaign against the “diphtheria” epidemic, through Houthi leaders at the top of the health sector hierarchy who opposed and questioned the vaccination and the claim that it transmits diseases.
According to medical sources in Sana’a, the militia has, over the past years, prevented the entry of vaccines for children into Sana’a, as part of humanitarian aid to Yemen, on the pretext that Yemeni children do not need vaccinations, and request other treatment assistance related to war treatments and treatments that are not related to vaccination, but request other treatment supplies.
As a result of this intransigence, medical reports revealed, at the time, that the Houthi militia had caused the spread of the deadly “diphtheria” epidemic and recorded hundreds of deaths in areas under its control, including 16 children in Hodeidah alone.
