The North-East Emergency Manager for World Health Organisation (WHO),
Dr. Collins Owill has said that ‘insecurity and hard to reach areas;’
have denied 820,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) of healthcare
in Northeast.
The decade long Boko Haram insurgency in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe
states; has claimed many lives and property.
Owill disclosed this Thursday in WHO’s 2016-2019 Report; released to
journalists in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
“The humanitarian crisis in its 10th year, the state of health in
region has been negatively impacted by multiple factors, including
devastation of healthcare system and frequent displacement of people
during the conflict,” said the report, adding that there were influx
of IDPs into camps and host communities of Maiduguri, Monguno, Dikwa,
Pulka and Gwoza.
Insecurity, according to WHO’s omnibus report, led to the outbreaks of
diseases and destruction of the health system in insurgency affected
states.
“Affected population remain at high risk of epidemic-prone diseases
like cholera, measles, meningitis and viral hemorrhagic fever, such as
Lassa and Yellow fever,” said Dr. Chima Onuekwe in the report.
He said that endemic malaria accounts for 50 per cent of mortality and
morbidity in the insurgency affected region.
“More than half of the morbidity and mortality recorded in 2018 were
attributed to malaria,” he said, noting that it is proportion that is
higher than all other causes of combined deaths.
According to him, the immediate goal of global health agency and
partners is to reduce morbidity and mortality by scaling up
life-saving among affected population.
He noted that insecurity of mobile health team and inadequate funding,
remain challenges of accessing IDPs with healthcare delivery services.
