HEALTH-HORN OF AFRICA: UN Calls for Catastrophe Prevention

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jun 9 2000 (IPS) - A United Nations (UN) agency launched a special Action Plan on Friday in at attempt to prevent the nations of the Horn of Africa – and their 13.4 million people – from plunging into a severe health crisis.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) warns that the current food shortages in this eastern African region threatens to transform into another situation of widespread famine.

The WHO estimates that 25 million dollars would help the seven Horn of Africa countries to substantially reduce the deaths and suffering caused by preventable diseases and save thousands of lives in the coming months.

The director of the WHO Department of Emergency and Humanitarian Action, Xavier Leus, said this comparatively low sum could produce immediate and long-term improvements in health for the millions of people of the region.

Leus underscored the region’s circumstances, created by war and food shortages that make headlines around the world.

The reality, he said, is that the people in the region, weakened by the impacts of natural and manmade disaster, will have no way to save themselves – even if the weather offers respite – unless health is targeted.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warned earlier this week that the lack of rain in the Horn of Africa would continue for at least the next three months.

A report by this specialised agency of the UN stated that rains have been insufficient since the second half of 1998 in southeast Ethiopia, northern Kenya and some areas of Somalia.

Precipitation has even been less than the rainfall recorded during the drought disaster that devastated the region in 1983 and 1984, when more than one million people died, as well as two million head of cattle.

The seven countries making up the Horn of Africa are Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia and Uganda.

With the 25 million dollars, health professionals working in the region could create essential tools for preserving life and health, according to Leus.

Such measures would include early warning systems for outbreaks of deadly disease, improvement of the quality of the little water that is available, combating severe malnutrition, and creating access to basic health care services like immunisations.

Lianne Kuppens, WHO desk officer for the region, stated “the countries of the Horn need more than food right now. They need the tools to help themselves survive.”

The UN itself had also made an appeal earlier this week in New York to target 378 million dollars to attend to the immediate humanitarian needs of the people in the African region, 70 percent of who are children and women.

Of that sum, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) intends to earmark 30 million to benefit children in the areas of health, nutrition, water, sanitation, education and other services.

UNICEF proposes to spend 6.3 million dollars in Eritrea, 8.6 in Ethiopia, 8.0 in Kenya, 6.4 in Somalia and 500,000 in Djibouti.

Catherine Bertini, director of the World Food Programme (WFP), another UN agency, stressed that if the aid makes it to the region soon, “we can save thousands of lives.”

Meanwhile, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees calculates that another 7.5 million dollars would be needed to help the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.