WHO calls for aid for Liberia
The World Health Organisation has drawn attention to the growing health crisis in war-torn Liberia.
The WHO’s director general, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, today called for urgently needed supplies and funds calling for supplies and funds to provide crucial health care.
She noted that people were still living in “desperate conditions in rudimentary shelters with minimal access to health care”.
“Failure to address this situation,” she continued, “is compounding Liberia’s humanitarian crisis and putting the lives of many thousands of people at risk.”
Liberia has been embroiled in civil war for over a decade, when current president Charles Taylor came to power by force.
Talks are now taking place in Ghana between the government and rebel groups, and President Taylor has offered to stand aside if a peacekeeping force is sent to the country.
Clean water, food and sanitation are in short supply for the 97,000 or more internally displaced people who have been forced by the war to live in temporary camps near Liberian capital, Monrovia.
The conditions have increased the likelihood of diseases such as cholera and other diarrhoeal diseases, while measles and malaria are also on the increase.
Several camps have no health services, and local hospitals that have chosen to help out have warned that they will soon run out of essential medicines and supplies.
The WHO has already provided 650 kilograms of chlorine; enough basic health kits to support the health needs of 7,000 people for a period of three months, and 4,000 sachets of re-hydration salts and cholera treatments.
However, more is urgently needed, particularly because the week-old ceasefire offers a rare opportunity for aid workers and clinicians to operate in relative safety.
