SANAA, March 19 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO), UN International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and national health authorities have completed a large-scale vaccination campaign in Yemen after diphtheria infected over 1,300 people, the UN aid agencies said in a joint statement.
The campaign targeted nearly 2.7 million children aged between six weeks to 15 years old in 11 governorates. It focused on locations reporting suspected cases of diphtheria and areas at high risk of spread of the infectious respiratory disease.
WHO reported that 70 people have died, mostly children and young adults.
Diphtheria was first reported in October 2017.
"We are in a race against time to control this outbreak and save lives," said Dr. Nevio Zagaria, WHO representative to Yemen.
"The almost collapsed health system and the conflict has severely hampered the response, but we have managed to deliver urgently needed antibiotics and diphtheria anti-toxins (DAT) to support treatment," he said.
In November and December 2017, WHO and UNICEF vaccinated almost 450,000 children under seven years old against diphtheria in the Yemeni province of Ibb - the worst affected governorate accounting for nearly 35 percent of all cases reported.
The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces including the capital Sanaa in 2014.
Saudi Arabia has been leading an Arab military intervention coalition in Yemen since 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Iran-backed Houthi rebels forced him into exile.
The United Nations has listed Yemen as the country of the world's number one humanitarian crisis, where seven million Yemenis are on the brink of famine and cholera has caused more than 2,000 deaths.
