新型コロナ予防の手洗い、数百万人の手に届かないぜいたく　イエメン

【ハッジャＡＦＰ＝時事】新型コロナウイルスの感染拡大を食い止めるための手洗いは今や日常的な光景となったが、内戦で荒廃し清潔な水が非常に乏しいイエメンでは数百万人の人々にとって手が届かないぜいたくな行為だ。（写真は資料写真）
　イエメンの崩壊した医療体制の下で新型コロナウイルス感染者は今のところ確認されていない。だが、長年にわたる内戦で、国連が世界最悪の人道危機と呼ぶ状態に陥っているこの国にパンデミック（世界的な大流行）が及べば、その影響は計り知れない。
　イエメンは２０１７年、世界最悪のコレラ禍に見舞われた。国際ＮＧＯオックスファムは、新型コロナウイルスの脅威も重なり、今年の雨季が非常に厳しいものとなり得るとの見方を示している。
　イエメンでは、政府軍とイランの支援を受ける反政府武装組織フーシ派との間で戦闘が続いており、政府を支援するサウジアラビア主導の連合軍がイエメンに軍事介入してから５年がたつ。現在、人口３０００万人の約８０％が支援を必要としている。
　緊急医療援助団体「国境なき医師団（ＭＳＦ）」は、多くのイエメン人は清潔な水やせっけんさえ手に入らないと懸念する。
　ＭＳＦがイエメン、イラク、ヨルダンで展開するプロジェクトの責任者、キャロリン・セガン氏はＡＦＰに対し、「われわれは非常に心配している」「手洗いを彼らに推奨することはできるが、手を洗う手段が何もなかったらどうするのか？」と語った。
　国連児童基金（ユニセフ）によると、子ども９２０万人を含む１８００万人近くが、安全な水を安定して手に入れることができずにいる。水道水を利用できるのは人口のわずか３分の１ほどだ。
　同国では現在、健康医療センターの半数ほどしか機能しておらず、機能しているところでも医薬品や医療機器、人員の不足が深刻だ。
　医療がこのような状態の中、長年アラビア半島の最貧国であるイエメンに新型ウイルスが到達すれば「大惨事」になり得ると、ＭＳＦは指摘する。
　赤十字国際委員会イエメン代表部は２２日、「頻繁な手洗いは、コロナウイルス感染予防の最も効果的な方法だが、安全な水を手に入れることができないイエメン国民の半数以上はどうすればいいのか」とツイッターに投稿した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/03/26-12:55）

Hand-washing to combat the spread of coronavirus is the order of the day, but it's an unaffordable luxury for millions in war-ravaged Yemen where clean water is dangerously scarce.
Yemen's broken healthcare system has yet to register any cases of the disease, but if the pandemic does hit, the impact will be unimaginable in a country where five years of conflict has created what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Five years after a Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen to support the government against the Iran-backed Huthi rebels, some 80 percent of the population is in need of aid.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was concerned that many Yemenis have no access to clean water or soap.
We are extremely worried, Caroline Seguin, MSF's head of programmes in Yemen, Iraq and Jordan, told AFP.
We can recommend they wash their hands, but what if they don't have anything to wash with?
Nearly 18 million people, including 9.2 million children, do not have regular access to safe water, according to the UN's children's agency.
And only one third of Yemen's population has access to piped water, UNICEF said.
Eleven-year-old Mohammed's family, who live in the rebel-controlled Hajja province north of the capital Sanaa, are among those for whom water does not come out of a tap.
He and his sister leave their home on the back of a donkey every morning to retrieve supplies from a murky well three kilometres from their home.
I get the donkey ready... and then head out at 7:30am, and I keep going back and forth until 10am, Mohammed told AFP.
The two children wait for their turn to fill up plastic canisters with a dirty hose.
Their family has no choice but to drink the contaminated water and use it for cooking.
- Cholera and disease -
Yemen suffered one of its worst ever outbreaks of cholera in 2017.
Years of under-investment in public water and sanitation systems provided the foundations for this outbreak, Bismarck Swangin, UNICEF Yemen's chief of communications, told AFP.
The risk still remains if access to water continues to be low.
Tens of thousands of people -- most of them civilians -- have been killed since March 2015 when the Saudi-led coalition intervened in the war that has pushed the country to the brink of famine.
The conflict, which shows no signs of abating, has crippled the country's healthcare system and paved the way for the spread of diseases.
Mohammed Aqil, a doctor at Al-Jaada medical centre in Hajjah, said the clinic deals with around 300 patients a day.
Most of the cases are linked to diseases transmitted by consuming water that is not safe for drinking, he told AFP.
- 'A disaster' -
MSF said given the current situation of the healthcare system, which has all but collapsed, it would be a disaster if the new coronavirus reached Yemen, long the Arabian Peninsula's poorest nation.
Frequently washing hands is the most effective way to protect against the coronavirus, but what will more than half the Yemeni people who don't have access to safe water do, the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen tweeted on Sunday.
More than 12,000 deaths have been recorded since the virus first emerged in December, according to an AFP tally, most of them in Europe.
In Sanaa, the Iran-backed Huthi insurgents who control the capital and large parts of the north have suspended school classes and flights as cases of the virus in nearby countries soar.
Meanwhile, more than 1,700 cases have been recorded across the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations, with four deaths -- two in the United Arab Emirates and two in Bahrain.
We cannot overwhelm the already fragile health system in Yemen, the World Health Organization told AFP, adding that the introduction of the disease in Yemen will overrun hospitals and health facilities.