WHO: Health situation in Syria continues to deteriorate

The health situation in Syria has been deteriorating due to shortages of medicines and medical workers, destruction of health facilities and difficult access to health care, said the World Health Organization (WHO) Friday. Tarik Jasarevic, spokesman of the WHO, said that as of July 2013, 64 percent of the country's public hospitals have been affected by the conflict, which erupted in March 2011. Among them, 24 percent have been damaged, and the rest are out of service. More than 50 percent of skilled health workers have left the country. The situation is much worse in more affected areas. For example, at least 70 percent of the medical doctors have left Homs, said Jasarevic. Due to substantial damages to pharmaceutical plants, local production of medicines has been reduced by 65 to 70 percent. Before the conflict started, 90 percent of medicines in Syria were locally produced, he said. He said that epidemiological situation remains stable with no major outbreak reported. The measles epidemic started to recede in accordance with the normal evolution of the epidemic and as a result of the vaccination campaigns last May supported by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and WHO, he said. UNICEF spokesperson Marixie Mercado said Friday that the agency has joined the WHO and other partners in mounting a large-scale immunization effort aimed at protecting as many children as possible both in the country and across the region against polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases. Inside Syria, a campaign led by the Ministry of Health began on Thursday targeting 2.4 million children with vaccines against polio, measles, mumps and rubella, she said. Around 500,000 children in Syria have not been vaccinated against polio in the past two years due to insecurity and access constraints. Prior to the conflict, immunization coverage in Syria was about 95 percent, according to the UNICEF.