SWITZERLAND: The World Health Organisation yesterday appealed for US$2.54 billion for its work in 2023 to help millions of people facing health emergencies around the world.
The UN health agency said that it was currently responding to an unprecedented number of intersecting health emergencies.
It pointed to the brutal war in Ukraine and the health impacts of conflicts in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria and Ethiopia, as well as climate change related disasters like the monster floods that hit Pakistan last year and swelling food insecurity across the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.
And all of these emergencies, it stressed, overlap with the massive health system disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and outbreaks of other deadly diseases like measles and cholera.
“We’re witnessing an unprecedented convergence of crises that demands an unprecedented response,” WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said as the agency launched its appeal.
“The world cannot look away and hope these crises resolve themselves.”
He said the WHO was currently responding to 54 health crises around the world, 11 of which were ranked as the highest-possible level emergency, requiring a broad response.
- THE DAILY STAR
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