PR-2000-40/ MEDICAL SUPPLIES FOR THE INTERNALLY DISPLACED IN ERITHREA

Press Releases 2000

Press Release WHO/40
2 June 2000

MEDICAL SUPPLIES FOR THE INTERNALLY DISPLACED IN ERITHREA

The World Health Organization (WHO) has moved rapidly to ensure medical supplies are available for the estimated 550,000 people now internally displaced in Eritrea as a result of its war with Ethiopia.

With the help of the Organization for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Assistance's warehouse in Pisa, Italy, WHO shipped ten emergency surgical drug and supply kits into Asmara last Sunday (28 May) after a two day field mission into the Western part of Eritrea by WHO and other health partners found a dire situation in medical services.

A further five kits containing enough essential drugs to care for 50,000 people for three months will arrive in Asmara this weekend, together with a complete anaesthetics unit. Both shipments, costing a total of US$ 275,000 including transport, have been funded by the Government of Italy.

A further 6.6 metric tonnes of drugs and medical supplies paid for by the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have been redirected to the emergency effort by the Ministry of Health.

According to the rapid assessment team consisting of the Eritrean Relief and Refugee Commission, WHO, UNICEF, UNDP and MSF Holland, which last week travelled into the western zones of Eritrea, there are now well over 550,000 internally displaced people gathered in clusters of 5000 to 15,000 in river basins and open land back from the front line of the fighting. There are no camps for the internally displaced persons per se, said the team, except the Ziron Camp, near Keren in the Central zone which then contained about 50,000 people, but which Government sources expect to reach 100,000 in the next couple of days.

According to the WHO representative on the team, the displaced have "no shelter, no food and no medicines." At one health centre in Guluj, near the border with Sudan, two sole health assistants are overwhelmed both with the people who can come to them, and with their efforts to carry out outreach services to the clusters of people who cannot reach the health centre.

Médecins Sans Frontières, Holland has set up a clinic in the Ziron camp, as has the Ministry of Health, and the non-governmental organization is also currently working on logistics to establish mobile clinics for the internally displaced persons.

With daytime temperatures reaching 42 C, dehydration is a major threat to health, plus with the rainy season approaching, WHO and its health partners warn diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea and acute respiratory infection may flare up dramatically.

Meanwhile, in Ethiopia, WHO last week installed a public health expert in Adis Ababa to focus on initiatives to combat the damage done to public health by the devastating combination of war, drought, famine and poverty throughout the Horn of Africa. Dr Elio Giombini will work closely with the Office of the United Nations Regional Coordinator for the Drought in the Horn of Africa, which will soon be joined by an expert seconded by WHO's Emergency and Humanitarian Action Department.

For further information, journalists can contact Ms Hilary Bower, Emergency and Humanitarian Action, WHO, Geneva. Telephone (+41 22) 791 3451. Fax (+41 22) 791 4844. Email: bowerh@who.ch