An official from the World Heath Organization accused the Iran-backed Houthis militias in Yemen of obstructing a cholera vaccination campaign in areas under their control. The Yemeni government, meanwhile, accused the militants of blocking access to humanitarian and relief aid to people in regions that they control. Those accusations were made by Minister of Interior Ahmed al-Maisari during his meeting Tuesday with a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross in the temporary capital of Aden. On Sunday, an oral vaccination campaign began in four districts in Aden, targeting 350,000 people to prevent the disease from spreading further. On Tuesday, more than 38,000 people were given the cholera vaccinated in the governorates of Mualla, Tawahi, Khor Maksar and Sira. Head of the Primary Healthcare Department in Aden, Dr. Mohammad Rajmanar, said WHO teams vaccinated 20,546 males, 18,080 females and 7,871 children. He called on the teams working in the campaign to keep up the effort to cover as many areas as possible in the coming days. According to the WHO, there have been more than one million suspected cases of cholera in Yemen, including 2,275 recorded deaths since November 2016. WHO Assistant Director-General Michael Ryan said plans are in place to extend the campaign to all of the at-risk zones. In a tweet posted Tuesday from Aden, the WHO expert said that the campaign hopes to cover at least four million people in at-risk zones across Yemen.
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