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What's New
08/24/2014
The situation for Afghans, as well as for aid workers, remains precarious, but aid workers keep implementing projects for the Afghan people. Insecurity represents a major challenge in Afghanistan for civilians and aid workers. Indiscriminate attacks, military operations affecting civilians as well as health providers, and overall instability were on the rise in the six first months of 2014.
08/21/2014
Tens of thousands of volunteers fanned out across Afghanistan this week, braving deteriorating security and distrusting parents to administer two chilled drops of the oral polio vaccine each to millions of children. Keeping the highly infectious polio disease in check in any country is a daunting task. But in a nation where Taliban militants are fast gaining ground against government forces, it's also a dangerous one.
08/19/2014
Emergency room nurse Nora Hellman is a frontline health worker who has responded following natural disasters and during armed conflicts around the world to provide lifesaving medical care. With a background in wilderness medicine, Nora has deployed to extremely difficult working conditions with International Medical Corps but is quick to point out the courageousness and hard work of the local staff she worked alongside throughout numerous disasters.
08/18/2014
As major emergencies around the globe increase in scale, complexity and frequency, WHO is calling for an end to the targeting of health workers in conflicts and other humanitarian crises, which represent a breach of the fundamental right to health.
08/17/2014
An angry mob attacked the quarantine centre in Monrovia's densely populated West Point township on Saturday evening. Rebecca Wesseh, who witnessed the attack, told the AFP news agency: "They broke down the door and looted the place. The patients have all gone. "The attackers, mostly young men armed with clubs, shouted insults about President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and yelled "there's no Ebola", she said, adding that nurses had also fled the centre.
08/15/2014
Local and international health workers in Libya face a complex array of threats to their physical, financial, and emotional security. Earlier this month, Kerala Chief Minister Oomen Chandy and Federal Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj organized evacuations for thousands of Indian nurses who worked at Libyan hospitals in Tripoli and Benghazi.
08/15/2014
Last month, Dr. Saeed al-Samahiji, a Bahraini ophthalmologist, was arrested from his home to begin serving a one-year prison sentence after being convicted of “insulting the King of Bahrain” at a funeral last year. Dr. Al-Samahiji was among 20 medics in Bahrain that were convicted by a special military court on 29 September 29, 2011, for treating Bahraini citizens who had been attacked by security forces in the brutal government crackdown in response to peaceful protests in February of that year.
08/15/2014
In the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, some 15 hospitals have been damaged in the fighting and so far 20 health facilities have closed. Up to 70 per cent of health care workers have fled while the crisis prevents patients from accessing much needed health care. It is estimated that 5,000 people in that region have been wounded.
08/13/2014
Health workers and patients face extraordinary risks in today’s armed conflicts. Part I of the International Review of the Red Cross’s thematic issue on violence against health care focuses on patterns of attacks, based on results from data collection and field studies. The issue also outlines the legal and ethical frameworks that apply to the provision of health care.
08/12/2014
Hospitals and health facilities in Gaza are in dire need of support from the international donor community, a senior representative of the United Nations health agency today said following a visit to the Gaza Strip and Ramallah to survey the infrastructure there.