U.S. preparing ‘substantial’ aid package to help Yemen in coronavirus fight

The U.S. is preparing to send a “substantial” aid package to help Yemen in their fight against coronavirus, but it may be forced to circumvent the World Health Organization after President Trump vowed to freeze funding to the United Nations-backed agency over its handling of the outbreak.

While Yemen has only reported one confirmed case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, and no deaths, experts and humanitarian organizations have cautioned that an expected spread of the virus could be devastating in the wake of a five-year civil war that has demolished its infrastructure.

“We are trying to get some funding into Yemen for COVID-19 countermeasures. We have the tranche underway that would hopefully make it possible,” a a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters Tuesday. They stopped short of detailing the exact dollar amount the Trump administration was planning to allocate.

But the official warned that the department may have to find a different avenue for Yemen to receive the aid package instead of through the WHO, which has been leading the global response to the pandemic.

Last week, Mr. Trump said the U.S. will freeze funding to the WHO while his administration reviews its role in “mismanaging” the coronavirus. He cited the WHO’s lack of pushback to Beijing’s foggy reporting on the virus in the early going, saying it cost the rest of the world valuable time.

“It would be a substantial contribution and we’d figure ways to get through existing networks and reliable health organizations because we are caught on this rock of the WHO at the moment, which does a lot of good work in Yemen by the way,” the source continued. “So we may have to find alternative avenues.”