The Minister of Health in the Houthi government, Taha Al-Mutawakkel, announced to a room full of health professionals and government officials on Saturday that “promising” research and development in Yemen will soon result in a vaccine for COVID-19.

Al-Mutawakkel and a number of Houthi ministers held a meeting on Saturday with staff from hospitals and public and private health centers in the capital Sana’a, according to the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV.

At the meeting, Al-Mutawakkel reportedly claimed that the de-facto authorities were close to discovering the cure for the pandemic, saying “God willing and with the capabilities of our doctors, pharmacists, and laboratory colleagues we are conducting extensive research and the corona drug will come from Yemen.”

“There is extensive and promising research and studies in all that the word ‘promising’ means,” the health minister said, adding "the treatment will come from Yemen.”

More than a month ago, Al-Mutawakkel stated that the Houthis were seeking to produce a treatment for COVID-19, and said in a speech to members of the Sana’a-based parliament that engineers and experts who were able to make missiles and drones are able to manufacture a treatment for corona and repair oxygen devices needed by hospitals.

“We treat patients out of their human right to care, not as stock market figures that the media are racing to exploit,” he said. “There is media terrorism that turned the disease into a stigma, and this is a malicious media policy that ignores the human being and turns him into a number,” the health minister added.

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