Houthis wage war on children's health in Yemen

Over the past decade, Yemeni children have borne the brunt of the destruction, violence and hunger caused by Houthi militants.

The World Food Programme reports that nearly half of Yemen’s children under the age of 5 – about 2.2 million children – suffer from severe malnutrition.

What many people don’t know, but is equally devastating, is that Houthi militants have directly targeted children with medical misinformation, preventing basic health practices and putting young lives at risk.

Polio and Misinformation: A Deadly Combination

Houthi militants continue to obstruct life-saving polio vaccination campaigns, calling them an “international conspiracy.” The Houthis’ claim is, of course, false. Modern medicine saves lives.

In fact, the polio vaccine—the precursor to modern vaccines—came to Europe from the Ottoman Empire, which included parts of present-day Yemen. The Houthi attack on vaccines deliberately ignores the Muslim world’s proud history in science and medicine.

This misinformation is deadly. Last year, Houthi health authorities held an event denouncing vaccines—and all modern medicine—as a Jewish conspiracy with no scientific basis. They claimed that Yemenis could only gain immunity from disease and maintain their health by following the instructions of the group’s leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.

The consequences of this misinformation have been tragic, with vaccine-derived polio spreading in Houthi-controlled areas, with 178 children infected since 2022.

In June, the World Health Organization reported three new cases of vaccine-derived polio in the Houthi-controlled north, bringing the total number of cases in 2024 to 10. Polio can damage the nervous system, brain and spinal cord in children and can lead to permanent weakness or paralysis.

“Children are particularly vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio, measles, whooping cough and diphtheria,” said Dr Arturo Pesigan, WHO Head of Mission in Yemen.

“One in four Yemeni children has not received all the recommended vaccinations in the national routine immunization schedule, and 17% of them are children who have not received any vaccinations, and have not received a single dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine,” he added.

The need for change

It is noteworthy that Yemen and Somalia are the only two countries in the Eastern Mediterranean Region according to the World Health Organization’s divisions in which the polio virus is still spreading, despite the fact that polio has been almost eradicated worldwide – the number of people infected with it has decreased by 99% since 1988.

Misinformation and weak governments can destroy lives. Yemeni children deserve the same chance at a healthy life as children around the world. The Houthis must stop spreading misinformation and false information and work to ensure access to life-saving vaccines.

Source: US Embassy in Yemen