WHO Documents Over 8,500 Attacks on Health Care Globally Since 2018

GENEVA, June 6. /TASS/. The World Health Organization (WHO) has registered more than 8,500 attacks on health care and numerous casualties among patients and medical workers across the globe since it began monitoring the situation in 2018, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated.

"Attacks on health care have become the 'new normal' of conflict," Ghebreyesus said at a meeting of the UN Senior Management Group on the protection of health care in conflict. The text of the speech was published by the WHO press service.

"Since 2018, when WHO started monitoring attacks on health care, we have documented more than 8500 attacks in 22 countries or territories, with more than 3800 deaths and 6200 injuries of health workers and patients," the WHO chief said.

Over the past three years, attacks on health care facilities have become more frequent, their magnitude has increased and impact has become more severe, he added. Attacks on the health system "take many forms, from bombing hospitals to intimidating health workers, to blocking medical access," Ghebreyesus noted.

"Sometimes health care is attacked by civilians due to fear, misinformation, or misunderstanding of [the causes of] disease outbreaks."

The WHO director general said that since the beginning of the conflict in the Gaza Strip, the WHO has documented 720 attacks on health facilities, with 917 people killed and 1,406 others injured. "Combined with the aid blockade, these attacks have left only 63 out of 156 primary health care centers and only 20 of 36 hospitals functioning even partially."

In a June 5 press release, the WHO warned that "the Gaza Strip's health system is collapsing," with Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital, the last two functioning public hospitals in the southern city of Khan Yunis, operating above their capacity and being "at risk of becoming non-functional."