Health Professionals in Syria

07/02/2013

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, and WHO, with support from the Office of Foreign Disaster Control, trained 50 staff from Syrian and Jordanian ministries of health and other organisations working in and around Syria in May, 2013, in Jordan. A third of Syria’s 21 million people are now displaced from their homes. Most of the north of Syria is rebel-held territory and local administration is no longer directed by the national administration.

Patients have flooded into several hospitals in neighbouring countries, where Islamic charities are subsidising care. Some 850 camps are known to the Syrian Government, which attempts to supply them with essential goods. People living in these camps are vulnerable. The nascent network of opposition-led health services is neither supplied nor organised enough to respond to the needs. In some areas where both government and opposition are absent, local non-governmental organisations have formed to provide protection and care. Their main concern is a near dearth of medicines in these areas.

The full article continues at http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2813%2961507-X/fulltext on The Lancet’s website.