Kuwait

Kuwait has been working alongside WHO in response to health emergencies and humanitarian crises to provide essential lifesaving support. Over the years, Kuwait has supported WHO in emergency responses such as outbreaks including COVID-19, Ebola, cholera, as well sudden onset emergencies such as the floods in Iran in 2019. 

COVID-19 Global Response

Today Kuwait is contributing to strengthening country-level coordination, planning and monitoring; support the establishment and operationalization of national and sub-national health emergency operation centres; improve national capacity on risk communications and community engagement; enhance national surveillance capacities; strengthen national laboratory capacity; help mitigate outbreaks; upgrade the diagnostic testing capacities of reference laboratories; reinforce the pharmaceutical sector, including provision of medical supplies and products; and assessing the burden on local health systems, and on the capacity to safely deliver primary health care services. 

Beneficiary countries include Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Occupied Palestinian Territories and Tunisia.

COVID-19 Pandemic

In 2020, WHO and Kuwait joined efforts to respond to the devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kuwait was one of the first responders to the COVID-19 appeals, contributing USD 60 Million to WHO’s Strategic and Preparedness Response Plan to boost the healthcare systems of recipient’s countries and strengthen WHO’S capacity at its 3 levels.

ACT-Accelerator

The State of Kuwait is among the partners that contribute to the WHO ACT-Accelerator (ACT-A) initiative. The ACT-A initiative was launched in April 2020 as a free-standing collaboration of existing and proven international health agencies and organizations to accelerate the development and equitable global access to safe, effective and affordable COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines. 

Expanded Special Project for Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ESPEN)

The State of Kuwait through the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) supports the Expanded Special Project for Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ESPEN). A five-year project, ESPEN was launched in 2016 by the WHO Regional Office for Africa. It's objective is to provide national NTD programmes with technical and fundraising support to help them accelerate the control and elimination of the 5 Neglected Tropical Diseases amenable to Preventive Chemotherapy (PC-NTDs) with the greatest burden on the continent, namely Onchocerciasis, Lymphatic Filariasis, Schistosomiasis, Soil Transmitted Helminthes and Trachoma, which collectively affect hundreds of millions of people.

Yemen

Kuwait has supported WHO in providing vulnerable people with access to essential health services close to where they live, including for: general services and trauma; child and nutrition care; reproductive, maternal and newborn care; mental health; communicable diseases; and life-threatening noncommunicable diseases.

WHO continues to scale-up health activities and with the support of Kuwait, conducted multiple rounds of vector control campaigns to fight dengue, supported 60 medical teams, including 10 emergency medical mobile teams and 21 surgical teams stationed near active frontlines, provided anti-cancer drugs to 12 oncology centres, and provided 21 dialysis centres with renal sessions across Yemen. WHO has also been procuring and transferring emergency medical supplies, medicines and other health supplies that are extremely limited and desperately needed in the country.

Cholera in Yemen

In Yemen, WHO protected over 1 million people from cholera, through oral cholera vaccine (OCV) campaigns across the country between 2018 and 2020. Kuwait has been supporting WHO's cholera programme in Yemen since 2017. There have been 280 198 suspected cases of cholera since the beginning of 2018, and 372 associated deaths. Children under 5 account fort 32% of the total suspected cases.

Cholera has been reported in 22 out of Yemen’s 23 governorates, and 306 out of the country’s 333 districts. To help severely malnourished children suffering from medical complications, WHO supports 269 health facilities in Yemen and has established 51 therapeutic feeding centres in 17 governorates. WHO has also established 72 diarrhoeal treatment centres and 25 oral rehydration centres for the treatment of cholera and other diarrhoeal diseases.

The partnership between WHO and the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) has enabled collaboration with local authorities in Lebanon to contain measles outbreaks and to continue efforts towards measles elimination.

Lebanon has experienced measles outbreaks since mid-2018 through 2019, affecting equally Lebanese and Syrian refugees, with thousands of reported cases. WHO recommended bringing measles transmission in Lebanon to a halt by ensuring that every child under 10 years of age has access to free measles vaccine.

The measles vaccination campaign was launched in Lebanon in December 2019 and has proven to be very successful as there has since been a significant drop in transmission in the country. 

The Ministry of Public Health with joint support from WHO, UNICEF and partners in Lebanon implemented the National Measles Campaign in 2 phases (December 2019 and October 2020) vaccinating a total of 479,992 children between children 6 months to less than 10 years of age, reaching a coverage of 71.2% among Lebanese communities, and 83% among refugees communities, despite the limitations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of movement restrictions.