Yemen vaccine shortages raise fears for millions of children

For Mirsal Adel, finding vaccines for his children had never been difficult. Public hospitals and paediatric clinics in his hometown of Ibb provided them free. That changed when he tried to vaccinate his four-month-old son.

Adel said hospital staff told him UNICEF, which had supplied the vaccines, had stopped deliveries and could not say when they would resume. In October 2025, UNICEF halted operations in Houthi-controlled areas after the detention of dozens of United Nations staff members, including UNICEF workers, and raids on its premises.

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I visited the hospital more than once, and I was told that UNICEF, which used to provide the vaccines, stopped supplying them, with no word on when they might arrive.

Yemen’s Health Ministry in the Houthi-held capital, Sanaa, told Al Jazeera that its last vaccine shipment arrived on September 4, 2025. In late July 2026, the government Health Ministry in Aden warned that nearly five million children in Houthi-controlled areas had lost access to essential routine immunisations.

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Our children’s health is a red line, and we must do everything we can to get them vaccinated.

Adel travelled with his son to Taiz, a government-held city about 75 kilometres away, where vaccines remained available. The trip cost him about $100, an unaffordable sum for many families in Yemen. “Our children’s health is a red line, and we must do everything we can to get them vaccinated,” he said.

He secured the child’s first two doses of polio and pneumococcal vaccines, but fears he may have to make the journey again. “I hope children’s vaccines will be available locally next time so I won’t have to resort to travelling again,” Adel said. He recalled that vaccination teams once went door to door, but said access had suddenly become costly and unreliable.

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I hope children’s vaccines will be available locally next time so I won’t have to resort to travelling again.