Coronavirus Disease Response in Yemen

The novel coronavirus pandemic is spreading faster in Yemen causing deadlier consequences than many other countries. The pandemic is severely exacerbating the humanitarian crises in a country that is struggling with the world’s largest one. Families live in crowded conditions, unable to socially distance and without access to clean water for hand-washing. These conditions contribute to a widespread transmission of the disease.

The country has been struggling with the spread of multiple diseases mainly cholera, malaria and Chikungunya.

This solution will interrupt the widespread transmission of COVID-19 through effective containment and timely response approaches. The solution supports contact tracing and referral of samples of suspected cases for laboratory confirmation. Furthermore, the solution enhances community engagement to expand risk communication at community level in collaboration with influential leaders.

The solution will collaborate with other actors to contribute to minimizing morbidity and fatality of COVID-19 through effective containment and timely response strategies. 

Coronavirus pandemic is spreading faster in Yemen causing deadlier consequences than many other countries. Over the past four weeks, an increase of 325 per cent of COVID-19 cases have been reported. The case fatality rate is alarmingly high at 24.77 per cent. More than 75 per cent of confirmed cases are men and people in the age range of 45 to 59. While an accurate total number of cases are not available due to the restriction of access to health facility figures, 256 cases were reported from a single city in the south of Yemen, including 53 deaths. However, these figures are not up to date as hundreds more people are symptomatic and are dying with COVID-like symptom. Community transmission is taking place across the entire country, individuals with mild and moderate symptoms are often not seeking health care and only seek treatment when they are critically ill. Fear of stigma, concerns about safety, inability to access testing and the perceived risks of seeking care may explain why people are not seeking treatment earlier.

The widespread transmission warrants an intensification of contact tracing, scaling up awareness and risk communication interventions and effective case management.

The solution recruits and trains Rapid Response Teams (RRT). A total number of 30 teams will be deployed to densely populated and most-at-risk districts to identify cases, trace contacts and promote health education. Every single team consists of a medical doctor, an epidemiologist, a laboratory technical and two social mobilizers. RRTs will forge a relationship with potential health facilities to expand the testing and contact trancing at community level and refer suspected cases to laboratories for confirmation.

Noting the limited access of vulnerable and at-risk groups to radios and televisions and the significant role of religious leaders in behavior change communication, RRTs will sensitize community heath volunteers, district health workers, women groups and religious leaders to spread accurate and science-based timely and relevant information at community level. This will minimize the myths and conceptions and eventually lead to a change of behavior.

The solution serves the vulnerable groups such as internally displaced persons, refugees, people with chronic illnesses and poor communities in at-risk areas to detect cases, trace contacts, isolate suspected cases and refer confirmed cases to isolation facilities. This will reduce the risk of further escalation of the situation and shield the vulnerable people. It will also interrupt the proliferation of the disease among marginalized groups.

The solution engages communities to contribute to the active monitoring of identified cases. They ensure all high-risk exposure contacts are quarantined for 14 days and report any symptomatic case to the teams. Equally, influential figures of the communities will be engaged in community mobilization, health education and implementation of risk communication interventions in order to scale up the infection prevention and control measures.

The solution recruits Rapid Response Teams to interrupt the widespread community transmission of COVID-19 among the vulnerable groups. The teams implement a contact tracing campaign which will involve figuring out who an infected person has been in contact with for the past 14 days and preventing them from infecting others. 

The campaign is a fundamental element of a comprehensive approach for containing COVID-19. It is one of the promising solutions to early detection and prompt isolation of new cases in order to control transmission. It reduces the time from symptom onset to isolation and the likelihood of an ongoing transmission.

The solution develops an application that will assist contact tracing. The app will be installed in cellphones of target populations to support an efficient contact tracing. This can help reduce the time from symptom onset to isolation and may have substantially reduced the likelihood of an ongoing transmission. It will help better understanding of the epidemiological trend of COVID-19 in these districts.

The solve will develop an application that will be compatible with Android and Apple. The design of the application will be produced after securing the support of Resolve. 

The solution will develop a simple contact tracing application that will have simple features that are compatible with Smartphones.

The solution will interrupt the widespread transmission of COVID-19 in densely populated cities and at-risk communities in Yemen. It supports to expand the coverage of COVID-19 testing and contact tracing at community level targeting densely populated areas and at-risk communities.

It also supports to carry out preliminary containment and control measures at community level targeting densely populated areas and at-risk communities.

It improves access of cases who have been tested positive to adequate treatment services in designated isolation facilities.

Currently the solution has 3 team members 

In one year it will have 7 team members 

In five years it will have 18 team members

Our goal is to expand our geographical coverage, mobilize additional resources and serve the migrants and refugees in points of entries, refugee camps and internally displaced settlements.

Funding is the major issue that our venture is currently facing.

We are aiming to mobilize more resources and reach out to all potential funders and donors

N/A

We have three full time members and seven volunteers. 

Our team members have substantial humanitarian and development experience, throughout the last few years they documented remarkable gains through strategic partnerships and professional management with sound technical knowledge; conceptual and analytical abilities; good judgement and adaptive, flexible and leadership capacities.

Resolution Project 

A humanitarian non-profit organization

We are a non-profit organization, we rely on our generous donors. We mobilize resource and raise funds using different channels.