U.S. readying ‘substantial’ aid to help Yemen fight coronavirus

The United States is preparing a “substantial contribution” to help Yemen combat the Coronavirus, but it may have to find alternatives to the World Health Organization (WHO) to spend it, a senior U.S. official told Reuters, days after President Donald Trump slammed the U.N. agency’s handling of the pandemic.

“We are trying to get some funding into Yemen for COVID-19 countermeasures. We have the tranche underway that would hopefully make it possible,” said a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, declining to reveal exactly how much Washington was planning to spend.

“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. So we may have to find alternative avenues,” he said.