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CONTEXT
Yemen continues to face a prolonged and intensifying humanitarian emergency, driven by years of conflict, escalating regional hostilities, economic collapse, widespread food insecurity, recurrent disease outbreaks and compounding climate shocks. In 2025, humanitarian needs continued to rise, with 19.5 million people requiring assistance and 10.5 million targeted for support, including 4.5 million internally displaced persons.
Yemen remains in the grip of a severe food insecurity and health crisis. Between May and August 2025, an estimated 17.1 million people – nearly half the population – faced Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3+) food insecurity, including 5.2 million in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) conditions. Projections through early 2026 indicate that more than half of the population will continue to face Crisis or Emergency levels, with some areas at risk of Catastrophe.
Population displacement and migration continue to strain Yemen’s fragile health system. Overcrowded shelters, unsafe water supplies and poor sanitation are accelerating the spread of communicable diseases and overwhelming limited health and nutrition services. Climate-related shocks are intensifying these risks, as rising temperatures, erratic rainfall and flooding expand the transmission of malaria and dengue fever, and damaged water systems and poor hygiene fuel recurrent outbreaks of cholera and acute watery diarrhoea.
Yemen is experiencing multiple, concurrent disease outbreaks, further stretching an already fragile health system. Cholera remains a major public health threat, with Yemen among the top three countries reporting the highest number of suspected cases in 2025. Transmission is driven by limited access to safe water and sanitation, delayed care-seeking and constrained access to timely treatment, particularly in northern governorates. At the same time, low routine immunization coverage exposes children to vaccine-preventable diseases. Only 63% of children are fully immunized nationwide, contributing to the continued spread of polio, which re-emerged in 2021. Measles and diphtheria also persist, largely affecting unvaccinated children and underscoring the cumulative impact of prolonged service disruption. Vector-borne diseases also pose a growing concern. Malaria transmission risk affects roughly two-thirds of the population, with pregnant women and children under five most vulnerable, particularly in the Tehama coastal plain and western highlands. Dengue fever has surged across multiple governorates, adding to pressure on overstretched health services.
System-wide constraints continue to undermine service delivery. According to the Health Resources and Services Availability Monitoring System (HeRAMS) 2025, only around 60% of health facilities are fully functional, and just one in five can provide maternal and child health services, leaving millions of women with limited access to care. Fuel shortages, import delays and funding constraints continue to limit partners’ operational capacity.
In this context, Yemen’s classification as a Grade 3 emergency—the highest level of WHO emergency activation—reflects both the scale of health needs and the immediate risk of excess mortality without sustained support. In 2026, the humanitarian health response is entering a more constrained phase, as funding shortfalls and insecurity drive the phase-out of health partners across northern governorates, creating widening gaps in primary and secondary care. Further reductions in health services would rapidly translate into preventable deaths and uncontrolled outbreaks. Targeted investment through WHO can protect life-saving services, contain epidemic risks and help preserve the foundations of Yemen’s health system at a critical juncture.