14 September 2018 – The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday airlifted 21 tons of essential medical supplies and vaccines to Al-Hasakeh governorate in north-east Syria. This is the fourth time this year that the Organization has delivered emergency health supplies to the governorate.

The items – enough to cover more than 137 000 medical treatments – will be distributed to hospitals and health care centres within the governorate and in surrounding areas. They include trauma kits, cholera kits, pneumonia and family doctor kits, supplies for haemodialysis sessions, medicines to treat noncommunicable diseases, and more than 365 000 vaccines for polio, measles, mumps, rubella and other infectious diseases.

Al-Hasakeh hosts almost 250 000 internally displaced people who fled intense fighting in the neighbouring governorates of Ar-Raqqa and Deir-ez-Zor. The highly volatile situation in both these governorates and in rural Aleppo has hampered humanitarian access to Al-Hasakeh and resulted in severe shortages of medicines and supplies.

The majority of health care facilities in rural areas of Al-Hasakeh are either closed or only partially functioning. Those that remain open rely heavily on supplies from WHO to enable them to continue providing health care to their patients.

“This airlift will play a critical role in ensuring that overwhelmed public health care facilities can remain functional and continue providing desperately-needed health care to vulnerable Syrians,” said Elizabeth Hoff, WHO Representative in Syria. “WHO is coordinating its health humanitarian response in Al-Hasakeh with local health authorities, six NGO partners and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent”, she added.

WHO has delivered more than 688 000 treatments to Al-Hasakeh since the beginning of the year. The Organization remains committed to supporting public health care facilities in Al-Hasakeh, Ar-Raqqa and Deir-ez-Zor governorates in north-east Syria with medicines and health supplies to help them respond to the overwhelming health needs in the area.

The supplies were procured using contributions from the Government of Norway, the United Kingdom Department for International Development and USAID. The cost of airfreighting the supplies was covered by a contribution from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).