The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday called for an end to the targeting of health workers in conflicts and other humanitarian crises.
On the occasion of the World Humanitarian Day on Aug. 19, WHO said there was a continuing trend of attacks on health care workers, hospitals, clinics and ambulances in Syria, Gaza, the Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan and other areas.
Meanwhile, threats and harassment of health workers in West African countries have also been a worrying element of the Ebola outbreak. Professionals are taking personal risks to provide critical medical care, but have been threatened, shunned and stigmatized, the agency pointed out.
“Doctors, nurses and other health workers must be allowed to carry out their life-saving humanitarian work free of threat of violence and insecurity,” Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General, said in a statement.
Richard Brennan, director of WHO’s Department of Emergency Risk Management and Humanitarian Response, said “Assaults on health workers and facilities seriously affect access to health care, depriving patients of treatment and interrupting measures to prevent and control contagious diseases.”
In Pakistan and Nigeria, polio vaccinators, most of them female, have been specifically targeted, WHO added.
WHO said it is working with partners to better document, prevent and respond to such incidents.