Dr. Salma Al Qadasi

Dr. Salma Al Qadasi is a consultant pediatrician at Al Sabeen Maternity and Child Hospital in Sana'a — Yemen's primary maternal and child health hospital, which has maintained operations throughout the conflict despite severe resource constraints, supported in part by international humanitarian organizations. With 14 years of pediatric practice, Dr. Al Qadasi has dedicated her career to the health of Yemen's most vulnerable population: children in a country experiencing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

Yemen faces catastrophic levels of childhood malnutrition, with millions of children under five acutely malnourished and hundreds of thousands suffering life-threatening severe acute malnutrition. Dr. Al Qadasi's daily clinical work is defined by the management of this emergency: assessing children with wasting and edema, initiating therapeutic feeding with RUTF or F-75/F-100 therapeutic milks, managing the medical complications of severe malnutrition including hypoglycemia, hypothermia, and sepsis, and coordinating outpatient follow-up through community health workers.

Beyond malnutrition, she provides neonatal care for newborns at Al Sabeen — including resuscitation, management of neonatal sepsis, and care of low-birth-weight infants. She manages the pediatric infectious disease burden including cholera, measles, dengue, and acute respiratory infections in a population with disrupted vaccination and fragile immunity.

Dr. Al Qadasi's commitment to Yemen's children in circumstances of extraordinary difficulty makes her one of the most important members of the country's frontline health workforce.

Dr. Al Qadasi obtained her MBBCh from Sana'a University Faculty of Medicine and completed Pediatrics residency at Al Sabeen Hospital and Al Thawra Hospital. She holds the DCH (Diploma in Child Health) and the IMCI (Integrated Management of Childhood Illness) Certificate from WHO. She has completed UNICEF and WHO training in severe acute malnutrition management using the WHO 10-step protocol, neonatal resuscitation (NRP), and pediatric emergency medicine in resource-limited settings through humanitarian organization training programs.

Dr. Al Qadasi's clinical expertise is shaped by Yemen's child health emergency. In severe acute malnutrition, she applies the WHO 10-step protocol: treating infections, correcting electrolyte and micronutrient deficiencies, providing therapeutic feeding (F-75 stabilization followed by F-100 or RUTF rehabilitation), and monitoring for refeeding complications. She manages neonatal sepsis with broad-spectrum antibiotics, neonatal jaundice with phototherapy, and low-birth-weight infants with kangaroo mother care and supportive feeding. In pediatric infectious disease, she manages cholera with ORS and IV fluids, measles and its complications, dengue shock syndrome, and severe pneumonia with oxygen and parenteral antibiotics. She performs neonatal resuscitation, pediatric IV access including intraosseous access, and nasogastric tube feeding.

Dr. Al Qadasi has contributed clinical data to UNICEF and WHO malnutrition surveillance in Yemen and has participated in nutritional status assessments conducted by international humanitarian organizations. Her clinical observations on severe acute malnutrition management and childhood disease patterns in conflict-affected Yemen contribute to the humanitarian health evidence base.

Al Sabeen Hospital serves Yemen's domestic population, primarily in Sana'a and surrounding areas. Dr. Al Qadasi consults in Arabic. Given Yemen's infrastructure constraints, video consultation access is limited. She is a point of contact for international humanitarian health organizations providing pediatric support to Yemen's health system.

Dr. Al Qadasi has been recognized by the Yemen Pediatric Society and international humanitarian organizations including UNICEF for her contributions to child malnutrition management and neonatal care in Yemen. She has received acknowledgment from MSF and Save the Children for her collaboration with humanitarian pediatric programs at Al Sabeen Hospital.