Category: Medical

The World Health Organization says more than 700 health care workers and patients were killed, more than 2,000 injured, and hundreds of health facilities destroyed in countries of conflict between 2018 and 2020.

A three-year analysis was carried out in 17 conflict-ridden countries and territories, including Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Mozambique, the occupied Palestinian territories, and Myanmar.

New data show that health care continues to be under attack. So far this year, the World Health Organization has recorded 588 incidents in 14 countries with emergencies, causing 114 deaths and 278 injuries of health care workers and patients.

The WHO’s director of health emergencies interventions, Altaf Musani, says the impact of those health care attacks goes well beyond claiming lives. He says the ramifications are significant and alarming, especially considering the ongoing COVID-19 response.

“Their impact reverberates on health care workers’ mental health and willingness to report to work, equally, on communities’ willingness to seek health care, and also drastically reduces resources for responding to a health crisis, amongst others,” Musani said.

Musani says the ripple effect of a single incident is huge and has a long-lasting impact on the system at large. When health facilities are destroyed, he says, they need to be rebuilt.

When health care workers are killed or wounded, he says a vital work force must be reinforced. Building back those vital systems, he says, requires years of costly investment, years in which people in need are underserved.

“During the pandemic, more than ever, health care workers must be protected, must be respected,” Musani said. “Hospitals and health care facilities, including the transportation of ambulances should not be used for military purposes. Essential conditions for the continued delivery of vital health care must be given the necessary space.”

Musani notes any reduction in capacity will interrupt services and deprive vulnerable communities of urgent care.

The WHO is calling on all parties in conflicts to ensure safe working spaces for the delivery of health care services. It says people caught in emergency situations must be able to safely access care, free from violence, threat, or fear.

Source: Voice of America

U.S. Agency for International Development head Samantha Power is set to meet Wednesday with officials in Ethiopia as the United States urges the government to allow clear access for humanitarian aid to the Tigray region.

Power on Tuesday met with refugees in Sudan who have fled Tigray, and she reiterated the position of the United States, the United Nations and others that ultimately what will help the people in the northernmost region of Ethiopia is an end to the war that has been ongoing for more than nine months.

“The U.S. has been pushing all parties in Tigray toward an immediate cease-fire in the hopes that people like the Ethiopians I met here will be able to return home,” Power said in a Twitter post Tuesday. “The conflict has brought harrowing attacks against civilians, it is impacting millions, and it has to end.”

She said specifically the United States is calling for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or the TPLF, to withdraw from the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions, for the Amhara regional government to pull its forces from western Tigray, and for neighboring Eritrea to immediately withdraw its forces from Ethiopia.

“All parties should accelerate unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance to those affected by the conflict, and the commercial blockade of Tigray must end,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Tuesday in Washington.

The United States announced last week $149 million in additional humanitarian assistance for the Tigray region, while also calling attention to bureaucratic delays and attacks on aid convoys that have hindered efforts to get food and other necessary supplies to those in need.

After meeting in Addis Ababa Wednesday with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and other Ethiopian officials, U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths tweeted, “We need to see an end to the spread of the conflict, which is pushing humanitarian needs higher and making it harder to reach people in need.”

Griffiths also cited the “need to work with the government to improve conditions under which aid and humanitarian workers can reach those in need. We’ve been working hard to get 100 trucks a day in and we’ve been assured by the government that it will happen.”

U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told reporters Tuesday in Addis Ababa that in recent days, 122 trucks had arrived in preparation for taking supplies into Tigray, but that humanitarian organizations said the need in the region is more like 100 trucks of aid per day.

“We need to change circumstances that have seen trucks moving in rather slowly. We need assured access routes by land, as well as, of course, our own flights going in and out of Mekele, and frankly we need the war to end, we need the conflict to stop if this is to be a safe place for the people of those particular regions in northern Ethiopia,” Griffiths said.

All warring parties have been trading blame on several issues including blockade of access to humanitarian aid. The Ethiopian government has blamed Tigrayan forces for aid blockades, while Tigrayan forces blame the government. The Associated Press reported last week a senior USAID official told the news agency that the government’s allegation is “100% not the case.”

The official added that the “primary obstacle is the government.”

Ahead of Power’s visit, Ethiopian officials expressed strong opposition to opening the country’s western border with Sudan to transport aid into Tigray.

The two countries are clashing over ownership of the fertile borderland.

“Access to the Tigray region is allowed through Amhara and Afar regions. Opening a corridor through the Sudan border will subvert the sovereignty of Ethiopia,” the country’s minister of labor and social affairs, Dr. Ergoge Tesfaye, tweeted Sunday [Aug. 1].

Meanwhile, TPLF forces were flexing their military muscles last month, pushing into the Amhara region to the south and to the Afar region to the east.

Cutting through Afar are the main highway and railway connecting the federal capital, Addis Ababa, with Djibouti’s seaport.

“It’s really hard to say at this point what the motivations of Tigrayan leadership are,” Joseph Siegle, research director for the Washington-based Africa Center for Strategic Studies, told VOA this week. “They’ve justified the attacks on Afar on the need to reopen supply routes into Tigray. And so it opens up the question about what other broader designs” the TPLF may have.

General Tsadkan Gebretensae, commander of the Tigrayan forces and former head of Ethiopia’s army, told the BBC Sunday that his troops made incursions into the Afar and Amhara regions to break up the humanitarian aid blockade and to force the federal government to accept their preconditions for a cease-fire.

Siegle told VOA that the TPLF “is not satisfied simply with defending the territory of Tigray but is instead wanting to take the offensive into other parts of Ethiopia.”

“The initial reaction has been a rallying around the federal government and other regions are supporting renewed efforts to try to push back in Tigray, and there [has] been a rise in volunteers to join the army,” Siegle said. “So I think in the short term there has been some sort of a unifying effect.”

In the longer term, Siegle said the fighting possibly could create more fragmentation among the roughly 110 million people in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous nation after Nigeria.

Aly Verjee, a senior adviser to the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Africa Center, said increased military buildup was worrisome.

He told VOA that the conflict’s “solution is a political one, not a military one. And so whether there are new troops on the ground from either side, it will still require a discussion at a political level to find some sort of resolution. And I think that is still very much possible if both sides feel that they can actually engage in talks.”

Ethiopia suspended part or all of the operations Tuesday of Doctors Without Borders and the Norwegian Refugee Council. The aid groups said the government ordered them to halt their work in Tigray.

Source: Voice of America

A Sudanese official says local authorities in Kassala province have found around 50 bodies, apparently people fleeing the war in neighboring Ethiopia’s Tigray region, floating in the river between the countries over the past week, some with gunshot wounds or their hands bound.

The official said Monday a forensic investigation is needed to determine the causes of death. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Two Ethiopian health workers in the Sudan border community of Hamdayet confirmed seeing the bodies found in the Setit River, known in Ethiopia as the Tekeze. The river flows through some of the most troubled areas of the nine-month conflict in Tigray, where ethnic Tigrayans have accused Ethiopian and allied forces of atrocities while battling Tigray forces.

Tewodros Tefera, a surgeon who fled the nearby Tigray city of Humera to Sudan, told The Associated Press that two of the bodies were found Monday, one a man with his hands bound and the other a woman with a chest wound. Fellow refugees have buried at least 10 other bodies, he said.

He shared a video of men appearing to prepare a shroud for a body floating face-down in the river.

Tewodros said the bodies were found downstream from Humera, where authorities and allied fighters from Ethiopia’s Amhara region have been accused by refugees of forcing out local Tigrayans during the war while claiming that western Tigray is their land.

“We are actually taking care of the bodies spotted by fishermen,” Tewodros said. “I suspect there are more bodies on the river.”

While it was difficult to identify the bodies, one had a common name in the Tigray language, Tigrinya, tattooed on his arm, the surgeon said.

Another doctor working in Hamdayet who saw the bodies told the AP that some of the corpses had facial markings indicating they were ethnic Tigrayans.

“I saw a lot of barbaric things,” said the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. “Some had been struck by an axe.”

Witnesses at the river told him they had not been able to catch all the bodies floating downstream because of the water’s swift flow during the rainy season, the doctor said.

An Ethiopian government-created Twitter account on Monday called the accounts of bodies a fake campaign by “propagandists” among the Tigray forces.

Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, on Monday visited a refugee camp in Sudan hosting thousands of Ethiopians who fled the Tigray war. She next will visit Ethiopia to press the government to allow humanitarian aid to Tigray, a region of some 6 million people where the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade is unfolding. The U.S. says up to 900,000 people now face famine conditions.

The U.N. food agency said it is working to provide food to Tigray through Sudan despite frayed ties between Khartoum and Addis Ababa.

Negotiations to access the blocked Tigray region have proved to be quite difficult, Marianne Ward, the World Food Program’s deputy country director in Sudan, said. She said WFP has already moved 50,000 tons of wheat to Ethiopia through Sudan.

Source: Voice of America

Authorities in Unity state say at least seven people are reported dead after floods submerged several homes in Mayendit County in recent days. The floods have also displaced about 400 families, officials say.

Mayendit County Commissioner Gatluak Nyang told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus that heavy rains had intensified over the past few weeks.

Seven people died of drowning, and 17 people have been bitten by snakes, Nyang said.

The floods destroyed infrastructure, houses and the livelihoods of hundreds of people. Nearly 90% of the land in Mayendit is submerged, Nyang said.

Nearly 400 families fled to higher ground for safety, and more than 500 head of cattle and 300 goats died in the flooding, he said.

“People are facing very, very bad situation in health,” Nyang said. “There are many diseases … because the hygiene is very poor. They have lack of shelter, and there is lack of mosquito nets, and people have malaria.”

Nyang urged aid agencies and the national government to provide food, shelter and medicine to prevent waterborne diseases from spreading.

John Juan Bum, executive director of the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission in Unity state, has issued a plea for help.

“We have submitted the comprehensive emergency and disaster report this morning to UNCHR as well as the NGO (nongovernmental organization) forum so that they share it with all the partners on (the) ground, such as to respond or at least initiate a rapid response,” Bum told South Sudan in Focus.

Kai Yer, a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) coordinator in Unity state, said he had yet to receive full reports on the extent of the damage.

“We have not got the details,” Yer said.

Torrential rains across South Sudan have repeatedly devastated several parts of the country, including Jonglei and Lakes states and parts of Central and Western Equatoria states.

Between July and September 2020, about 800,000 people were affected by flooding in areas along the White Nile River, forcing entire communities to flee to higher ground, according to the South Sudan government and aid agencies.

Source: Voice of America

The Biden administration is in the process of delivering 25 million vaccine doses to African countries in a massive effort to help African nations beat the COVID-19 pandemic. VOA’s Hayde Adams, the host of “Straight Talk Africa,” spoke with Akunna Cook, the U.S. deputy assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, about how the effort is going. The interview was edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: These are difficult times all over the world In Africa, only about 1% of the continent’s population is fully vaccinated. Please tell us more about what the United States is doing to get much needed vaccines to African countries and where those doses are going first.

COOK: It’s a pleasure to be with you, particularly talking about this topic of ending the COVID-19 pandemic, which is a top priority of the Biden-Harris administration. The president has been very clear that we have to approach, vaccine, vaccine contributions around the world with the same urgency that we have here in the United States, and so we are working tirelessly to get out this first tranche of 25 million doses to Africa. We have already, in the past two weeks or so, donated the first five million doses into 16 African countries. Burkina Faso and Djibouti were among the first.

But there’s many more coming… We will be delivering the largest sum of doses to any country, to South Africa at, 5.6 million doses, and then to Nigeria at just over four million doses coming up.

And so this is just the beginning. This are the initial tranche. We remain the largest contributor to (global vaccine distribution scheme) COVAX and are committed to getting vaccines out as quickly as possible because we know that we cannot end this pandemic anywhere until we’ve ended it everywhere.

VOA: The World Health Organization says Africa needs about 200 million doses to vaccinate 10% of its population by September this year. Is the United States prepared to do more? Is this a once off donation?

COOK: So our vaccine contributions are, what, multitiered and multilayered, right? So these initial this initial tranche of 25 million, it’s the first step. But we are also doing other things including supporting vaccine manufacturing on the continent. And so we have invested in vaccine manufacturing in South Africa and in Senegal to ensure that Africa can then produce its own vaccines moving forward. We are also providing economic assistance to countries that have been impacted by COVID-19 with over $541 million in assistance to respond to the economic aftereffects of the pandemic. And so this is just the beginning. This is an initial tranche of our assistance. And I’m sure that we will see more rolling out over, over the next couple of months.

VOA: Something we are seeing in the United States and something that is very prevalent across the African continent is misinformation around vaccines. There is a lack of trust as people feel that in the past, Africans, have been used as guinea pigs for scientific experiments, and of course there was an element of that here in the United States as well. What is your message to people in Africa about taking a vaccine coming from the West? How can they feel safe to trust the vaccines?

COOK: Well, you know what I will say is we absolutely acknowledge that there have been past reasons for there to be distrust here in the United States and around the world. But it is absolutely the case that these vaccines are safe and they are effective. And we are working to disseminate best practices, including working with trusted messengers to get the word out that these vaccines are safe and they are effective, and that is absolutely critical that populations around the world including here in the United States, avail themselves of these vaccines so that we can end this pandemic once and for all.

Source: Voice of America

Rescue ships picked up more than 700 people trying to cross the Mediterranean in makeshift vessels this weekend, mainly off the coasts of Libya and Malta, a migrant aid group said Sunday.

The latest figures came as United Nations migration officials repeated their calls for a fairer mechanism to share the responsibility of caring for them, rather than leaving it to the Mediterranean countries.

SOS Mediterranee said that its vessel, the Ocean Viking, had carried out six operations in international waters since Saturday.

In the last intervention, it rescued 106 people off the Maltese coast after being alerted by German aid group Sea Watch, said the Marseille-based organization.

“The youngest survivor rescued in this operation is just 3 months old,” SOS Mediterranee tweeted.

Overnight Saturday to Sunday, the Ocean Viking joined vessels from Sea Watch and ResQship, another German group, to help 400 people in difficulty in the central Mediterranean, said the group.

They were rescued from a vessel that was taking on water, in what a spokesman for the organization told AFP was a particularly perilous operation.

Those who were rescued were shared out between the Ocean Viking and Sea-Watch3.

Ocean Viking alone has 555 passengers on board from this weekend’s operations, including at least 28 women, two of whom are pregnant. The organization has yet to determine at which safe port they will be able to leave them.

Libya remains one of the main departure points for tens of thousands of migrants hoping to attempt the dangerous Mediterranean crossing, despite the continuing insecurity in the country. Most of them try to reach the Italian coast, about 300 kilometers (190 miles) away.

Celine Schmitt, the spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ French operation, said last month there was an urgent need for an automatic system to share the new arrivals between countries, to ensure them a better reception, and not leave it to Mediterranean countries to assume sole responsibility.

“If we look at the central Mediterranean, last year, there were fewer than 50,000 people who arrived,” she said.

“It is totally manageable for the European population,” when you consider there are 82 million people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes, Schmitt said.

International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesman Paul Dillon took a similar position last week.

“By advocating for better migration management practices, better migration governance and greater solidarity from EU member states, we can come up with a clear, safe and humane approach to this issue that begins with saving lives at sea,” he said.

The central Mediterranean crossing, between Libya and Italy or Malta, is by far the deadliest in the world, according to figures from the IOM.

Of the 1,113 deaths recorded in the Mediterranean in the first half of this year, 930 of them were recorded there.

Nevertheless, according to the latest IOM figures, increasing numbers of migrants have attempted the crossing this year.

Source: Voice of America

Tokyo’s metropolitan government said new coronavirus infections surged to a record high Saturday as the city hosts the Olympic Games.

The government reported 4,058 new cases, topping 4,000 for the first time.

The new record was set one day after Japan extended a state of emergency for Tokyo through the end of August to contain the spread. The extension also applies to three prefectures near Tokyo and the western prefecture of Osaka.

A new record for infections also was set nationwide Saturday. Public broadcaster NKH reported 12,341 new cases, 15% higher than the day before.

“The pandemic will end when the world chooses to end it,” World Health Organization Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday in Geneva about the global COVID-19 outbreak that is now being driven by the delta variant of the coronavirus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the delta variant is as contagious as chicken pox and that infections in vaccinated people may be as transmissible as those in the unvaccinated.

“WHO’s goal remains to support every country to vaccinate at least 10% of its population by the end of September, at least 40% by the end of this year, and 70% by the middle of next year,” the WHO chief said, but added that the realization of the goals is “a long way off.”

“So far, just over half of countries have fully vaccinated 10% of their population, less than a quarter of countries have vaccinated 40%, and only three countries have vaccinated 70%,” Tedros said.

He recalled that WHO had earlier “warned of the risk that the world’s poor would be trampled in the stampede for vaccines” and that “the world was on the verge of a catastrophic moral failure” because of vaccine inequity.

“And yet the global distribution of vaccines remains unjust,” Tedros said. “All regions are at risk, but none more so than Africa.”

“Many African countries have prepared well to roll out vaccines, but the vaccines have not arrived,” he said. “Less than 2% of all doses administered globally have been in Africa,” with only 1.5% of the continent’s population fully vaccinated.

The WHO chief said his organization was “issuing an urgent call” for $7.7 billion for the launching of the Rapid ACT-Accelerator Delta Response, or RADAR, a response to the delta surge that would provide tests, treatments and vaccines.

He also said COVAX; which provides vaccines to lower-income countries, needs additional funding.

“The question is not whether the world can afford to make these investments,” Tedros said,” it’s whether it can afford not to.”

U.S. President Joe Biden announced Thursday that civilian federal government employees must be vaccinated or submit to regular testing and wear masks.

On Friday, a reporter asked Biden as he was leaving the White House whether Americans should expect more guidelines and restrictions related to the coronavirus. “In all probability,” he said.

Biden also noted that on Thursday almost a million Americans received COVID-19 vaccinations and said, “I am hopeful that people are beginning to realize how essential it is to move” in response to the coronavirus threat.

The White House said the average number of people getting their first shot of the coronavirus vaccines this week was up 30% over last week.

Also Friday, Walmart joined a growing number of U.S. companies issuing mandates for its workers to be vaccinated, saying the policy would apply to all employees at its headquarters along with managers who travel within the United States.

The Broadway League said Friday that audiences will be required to show proof of vaccination to watch Broadway performances and will be required to wear masks.

Vietnam said Saturday it would extend travel restrictions in Ho Chi Minh City and 18 other southern cities and provinces for another two weeks to contain its worst outbreak to date, according to Reuters.

The extension begins Monday in a country that contained the virus for much of the pandemic but reports a total of 145,000 cases and more than 1,300 deaths, 85% of which were reported in the last month.

A weekend lockdown has been imposed in India’s southern state of Kerala as it grapples with some 20,000 new cases daily, Reuters reported. Federal authorities sent experts to the area to monitor developments in the state that accounts for more than 37% of the nearly 32 million cases reported by India’s health ministry.

Australia’s third-largest city of Brisbane said it would begin a COVID lockdown on Saturday amid rising case numbers. Neighboring areas will also be subject to the stay-at-home orders.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday that 80% of adults must be vaccinated before the country will consider reopening its border.

In Israel, health officials began administering coronavirus booster shots Friday to people older than 60 who have been fully vaccinated in an effort to stop a recent spike in cases.

Italy’s Health Institute announced Friday that the delta variant accounted for almost all new COVID-19 cases in the country at nearly 95% of cases as of July 20.

German officials announced Friday that unvaccinated travelers arriving in the country will need to present a negative COVID-19 test result.

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center Saturday reported there have been more than 197 million global COVID infections.

Source: Voice of America

The United Nations warns global hunger is increasing and urgent action is needed to stave off famine and death over coming months in nearly two dozen unstable, violence-prone countries.

A report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program said more than a half-million people are experiencing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity and 41 million are at risk of famine.

The report from the WFP and FAO focuses on the particularly serious situation in 23 so-called hunger hot spots. Most of those countries are in sub-Saharan Africa, with others in Central America, Asia and the Middle East.

Patrick Jacqueson, FAO officer in charge of the Geneva office, said acute hunger is set to increase in those countries over the next four months without urgent, scaled-up humanitarian assistance.

“Conflict continues to be the primary driver for the largest share of people facing acute food insecurity,” Jacqueson said. “Closely associated with conflict are humanitarian access constraints, which remain significant, compounding food insecurity. Weather extremes and climate variability are likely to affect several parts of the world during the outlook period.”

The report said dry conditions are likely to affect Haiti, Nigeria’s Middle Belt and the “Dry Corridor” in Guatemala, while above-average rainfall and flooding are forecast in South Sudan, central and eastern Sahel, and Gulf of Guinea countries.

400,000 face starvation in Tigray

The report highlighted the perilous situation in Ethiopia and Madagascar, the world’s newest highest-alert hunger hot spots.

Annalisa Conte, WFP Geneva Office director, said the aggravation of conflict in recent months is having a catastrophic impact on the food security of the Tigrayan population in Ethiopia. She warned that more than 400,000 people would face starvation if they did not receive sufficient humanitarian aid.

“If we move to Madagascar, Madagascar is experiencing the worst drought in 40 years,” Conte said. “On top of that, economic decline largely caused by COVID. As a result, 1.3 million people are currently facing the acute food insecurity.”

The FAO and WFP said fighting, blockades that cut off lifesaving aid to families on the verge of famine, and a lack of funding were hampering efforts to provide emergency food aid to millions of desperate people.

The agencies said families who rely on humanitarian aid to survive were hanging by a thread. They noted that most of those on the verge of famine in the 23 hot spots were farmers and must receive help to resume food production. That, they said, will allow them to feed themselves and become self-sufficient.

Source: Voice of America

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to cuts in foreign aid from donor nations such as Britain — which cut its aid budget by $5.5 billion — Australia, Japan and Saudi Arabia. The funding loss is being felt in Burkina Faso, where it could shut down a group that helps thousands of survivors of gender-based violence and rape.

The largest international nonprofits say the shock waves of the cuts will be felt by people across Africa in all kinds of situations and will result in deaths.

“For countries like the [United Kingdom] and others to be cutting their aid budgets in a global pandemic is extremely shortsighted, and we know it will put the fight back against poverty by many decades,” said Sam Nadel, Oxfam government relations chief. “So, the U.N. secretary general, for example, has called these cuts a death sentence, and it really is that stark for many people.”

Marie Stopes, a group offering family planning to countries in crisis like Burkina Faso, is primarily supported by British aid money.

The cuts will impact large numbers of women, according to the head of Marie Stopes-Burkina Faso, Dr. Toumbi Sissoko. The group has been able to assist more than 500,000 people over two years, she said.

“Alice,” whose name has been changed to protect her identity, received help from Marie Stopes after she fled her village in northern Burkina Faso, when gunmen attacked. She trekked through the bush for three days, seeking refuge, but then was seized by a group of terrorists.

She says they told her to put her daughter down, before one of them hit her with the back of his gun, knocking her to the ground. Six of them raped her, then discussed whether they should kill her, but, she says, they concluded it was useless to kill a woman. They got on their motorbikes and left.

When she reached the relative safety of Kaya the next day, she was directed to Marie Stopes-Burkina Faso.

Alice says a woman from Marie Stopes immediately gave her morning-after pills and advice. She was still traumatized and could neither eat nor breastfeed her daughter. She says that the woman at Marie Stopes encouraged her to eat and told her that her life was still worth living.

Flora Guibere, who works for Marie Stopes, fears that with the foreign aid cuts, beneficiaries will be left on their own, and many of her organization’s workers will be out of a job.

For women like Alice who fall victim to gang rape, it will mean they may no longer receive emergency birth control or support.

Source: Voice of America