Global health diplomacy: a solution to meet the needs of disabled people in Yemen
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Open Access
Global health diplomacy: a solution to meet the needs of disabled people in Yemen Saeed Shahabi1* , Maryam Jalali2 and Kamran Bagheri Lankarani1 Abstract People with disabilities (PWD) are one of the most vulnerable groups in society during armed conflicts. According to the statistics, four million persons with disability live in Yemen. Lack of access and the use of rehabilitation services make PWD unable to retrieve their social and economic roles, which would have substantial negative impacts both on their families and community. The conflict escalation, an increase in the number the of displaced, COVID-19 pandemic, an increase in non-communicable diseases, and the exacerbation of poverty and malnutrition have rapidly enhanced the population at risk of disability in Yemen. Accordingly, effective and comprehensive approaches such as global health diplomacy (GHD) should be considered to meet the emerged needs. GHD seeks to address the common challenges in the global health system by involving all key stakeholders and establishing negotiations and diplomatic dialogue among official actors. Given the presence of various regional and international actors in Yemen and the examples of the successful use of GHD under conflict and post-conflict conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the use of diplomacy is crucial to respond to the needs of PWD in this war-torn country appropriately. Keywords: Global health diplomacy, Disabled people, Rehabilitation, Yemen Since 2014, following the conflicts between the Houthis and supporters of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen experienced chaos and clashes. Furthermore, as of 25 March 2015, fighting escalated with the intervention of a Saudi-led military coalition seeking government support in Aden [1]. About 112,000 persons were killed during this conflict, of whom 12,000 were civil persons [2]. In addition, there have been many more indirect deaths as a result of disrupted health services and lack of food supplies and other key services. The over-five-year conflict has had a severe impact on public infrastructures, with 85% of the country’s population in the need of humanitarian assistance [3]. About half of the country’s health facilities are * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Health Policy Research Center, Institute of Health, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
currently fully operational [4, 5]. Disastrously, using explosive weapons in crowded and populated regions is one of the unfortunate features of the war [6]. One of the biggest world’s humanitarian crisis is now occurring in Yemen. People with disabilities (PWD) are one of the most vulnerable groups during conflicts [7]. According to the 2016 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) results, Yemen had the highest disability burden in accordance with the years lived with disability (YLDs) among 195 countries [8]. Although there is no exact statistics on the number of PWD in Yemen, it is estimated that fo
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