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01/21/2014
Clashes and insecurity in southern Libya are putting pressure on over-stretched health facilities as the government declares a state of emergency in the southern Fezzan region. The fighting has led to at least 39 deaths, with 70 people injured, in the regional capital Sabha over the past 12 days. Residents fear the limited presence of the state in the sparsely populated south and the lack of a strong national army are leaving them exposed.
01/13/2014
Heavy fighting has prevented health workers from getting polio vaccine to an estimated 100,000 Syrian children in the northeastern province of Raqqa, United Nations aid agencies said on Monday, appealing for access. The crippling infectious disease was confirmed in 17 children in Syria in October, the first outbreak there since 1999.
01/10/2014
Health workers in part of a troubled Pakistani tribal region Friday refused to participate in a polio vaccination campaign because of security threats, officials said. The three-day campaign in the Khyber tribal district is due to start on Saturday, almost three weeks after gunmen shot dead a worker while he was administering polio drops and vaccines to children in the town of Jamrud. Efforts to stamp out the crippling disease in Pakistan have been seriously hampered by militant attacks on health workers inoculating children.
01/09/2014
Throughout 2013, international humanitarian actors have faced major challenges responding to conflicts and natural disasters across the globe. Tens of thousands of people died in Syria and millions were displaced while international actors struggled to get access to desperate people.
01/03/2014
The Turkish parliament passed a bill today that will criminalize emergency medical care and punish doctors with heavy fines and imprisonment for assisting those in need. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is urging the president of the Turkish Republic, Abdullah Gul, not to sign the bill, which would have a chilling effect on access to medical care.
01/02/2014
Central African Republic descended into unprecedented chaos in December. The local Red Cross team traverses the city on a daily basis collecting bodies. After a recent spike in the intercommunal violence, the team collected 104 bodies in two days.
01/01/2014
The public health disaster in Syria has been a long time coming. In three years of violent conflict, 125,000 have been killed and millions displaced. The recent outbreak of polio has focused the world’s attention, and the international response is welcome. Yet this crisis was both predictable and preventable.
12/31/2013
The images of Imran Khan and other PTI men administering polio drops to children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been welcomed and appreciated by many. This is especially significant given that militants in the province have rejected and obstructed polio vaccinations for some years now. Also, just over this last year, the systematic murders and attacks on polio workers across the country have become as endemic as the disease.
12/30/2013
In Bahrain, two nurses and a doctor remain imprisoned during the holidays simply for doing their job: treating the injured during the government crackdown. Turkey is considering a bill that seeks to criminalize emergency medical care -- the latest example of the government trying to intimidate doctors for caring for those injured in last summer's protests.
12/19/2013
Adnan Ismail worked as a doctor in a Syrian government hospital. But civil war led him to a farm field where he and friends labored nights in secret to build a makeshift rebel-run clinic. For a year, Dr. Ismail helped dig walls and stairs to fashion an underground bunker that was eventually equipped for surgery, he said. Dr. Adnan Ismail led a secret life tending to Syrian rebels and civilians hurt by government forces.