HEALTH: Low Funds Help Preventable Diseases Kill Thousands in War- Torn States

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

MEXICO CITY, Sep 1 2000 (IPS) - Afghans continue to die from preventable diseases because the international community has failed to respond adequately enough to a World Health Organisation (WHO) appeal to fund healthcare programmes for their war-torn country.

The WHO made its appeal almost eight months ago, but, says the organisation, “less than one percent of the 2.8 million US dollars crucial to reverse the inexorable decline of the population’s health” has flowed in.

Consequently, says Hilary Bower, the information officer at the WHO’s department of emergency and humanitarian action, preventable deaths have continued to occur. She points out, for instance, that 17 out of every 1,000 women who give birth to a live baby die because “they can no longer access simple conditions for safe birth.”

In addition, the weakened health system in that Asian nation has new diseases to grapple with, like the outbreak of acute haemorrhagic fever syndrome (AFHS), a viral infection spread by ticks.

AFHS has killed 16 people since it was first detected in May this year. Its symptoms include sudden fever and dizziness leading to bleeding from the gums.

What troubles the WHO is that Afghanistan’s plight is shared by a number of other war-torn countries, like Burundi, the Republic of Congo, Uganda, Sudan, Somalia, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

“Under four percent of the money requested by WHO for humanitarian assistance for Africa (has been) given,” reveals Bower. And globally, “less than a quarter” of what the WHO had requested to assist health systems in war-torn countries has been funded this year.

According to Gerald Martone, director of emergency response at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a United States-based health non-governmental organisation, this trend does not translate to a case of aid-fatigue among the international donor community.

“In general the funding trend for emergencies has in fact increased during the 1990s, reaching an apex in 1994 of 5.7 billion dollars,” he adds. And following a decline over the next couple of years, “a rise occurred again in 1998,” reaching 4.5 billion dollars.

However, he admits, funding trends are not always directed towards need. “There are some crises that seem to attract greater compassion and reaction than others.”

For instance, the conflicts in the Balkans have received a funding response “well beyond crises of equal or even greater magnitude in Africa or Asia.” In addition, he stresses, when international donors do commit funds, not enough flows to certain sectors coping with emergency situations.

According to Bower, health systems in war-torn countries often figure prominently among the neglected sectors. Donors are still to be attracted to fund “preventive actions to avert the catastrophic health consequences of emergency and conflict situations.”

And she attributes such a trend to “disbelief” among donors that “health interventions can make a difference.”

As a result, she observes, “We are seeing people who have survived war, flight, drought, food shortages now finding their lives threatened by illness and disease that could, in many cases, be prevented by the most basic health interventions.”

Such a view, in fact, has been bolstered by an IRC report released this year, which concludes that deteriorating health systems in a conflict-zone often results in more deaths than those who die due to the direct consequences of a war.

This report, which studied the mortality rate in the war-affected areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, noted that since August 1998 there have been “at least 1.7 million deaths in war-affected areas over and above the 600,000 that would normally be expected.”

What is more, it added, “Of the 1.7 million excess deaths, 200,000 were attributable to acts of violence. The vast majority was due to the war-related collapse of the region’s health infrastructure and delivery of health and nutrition services.”

It revealed, furthermore, that most health centres do not have drugs, maternal and child health services are “grossly inadequate,” vaccination programmes have ceased, and many health professionals have fled the region.

Such a breakdown in that African nation’s health system has, consequently, allowed “common illnesses such as malaria, diarrhoeal diseases and respiratory infections to run rampant and kill.”

For Reynold Levy, IRC’s president, “The loss of life in Congo has been staggering.”

Another report, too, has expressed concern about the troubling consequences of under-funded health systems in the developing world. “Due to deteriorating public health systems, diseases which were once under control are re-emerging,” warned the ‘World Disasters Report,’ released this year by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

“Unfortunately, infectious diseases create silent disasters, which often go unrecognised and unreported,” it added, in reference to the escalation of diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, respiratory diseases, diarrhoea and syphilis infections.

According to this global assessment, furthermore, the death toll from infectious diseases “is 160 times greater” than the numbers killed during the natural disasters in 1999, including the massive earthquakes in Turkey, floods in Venezuela and cyclones in India.

And if such a dismal tide has to be reversed, health care systems need to be strengthened through steady funding, it noted.

Martone agrees. “It would be negligent on the part of donors to not even make these rudimentary interventions possible.”