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WHO: 302 attacks on health care workers in 2016, most in Syria
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WHO counted 302 attacks on health care workers in 20 countries last year, leading to 372 deaths and 491 injuries. But the agency said these types of attacks are probably underreported and that its numbers, gathered from open sources, do not represent the full magnitude of the problem.
WHO sorted the attacks according to type and location. Almost all of them occurred in Africa or the Middle East, including 207 in Syria, where health care workers and facilities have been targets during that country’s bloody civil war.
“These attacks have direct consequences for health service delivery, depriving people of often urgently needed care,” WHO said in a statement announcing the figures. “While we recognize that we are not capturing all data, and that there is significant underreporting, this is the only existing consolidation of global data on individual attacks on health care in emergency contexts.”
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Health care facilities were the primary target in 207 of the 302 attacks tallied by WHO in 2016. Providers were targeted 52 times, ambulances 40 times and patients three times.
WHO said attacks on health care “continue with alarming frequency,” following 338 and 256 attacks in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
The types of attacks varied last year. Most — 74% — involved a bombing. Others involved shootings, looting, assaults, abductions, arson, or threats. One category, accounting for 4% of incidents, included attacks labeled “obstruction” and “militarization.”
“That was actually one of the hard parts to figure out. It’s a wide range of things that can be considered [an attack],” Andrew Boyd, MD, an officer in the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service who has worked on the project, told Infectious Disease News in a recent interview.
After Syria, the greatest number of attacks occurred in Libya (20), the Central African Republic (18) and the West Bank and Gaza Strip (11). WHO documented one attack in Ukraine, the only non-Asian or African country included in the report. – by Gerard Gallagher
Reference:
WHO. Attacks on health care dashboard. 2017. http://www.who.int/emergencies/attacks-on-health-care/attacks-on-health-care-2016.pdf?ua=1. Accessed May 19, 2017.
Disclosure: Boyd reports no relevant financial disclosures.