Attacks on health care initiative 2019–2022

Overview

In the first three quarters of 2018, the Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care (SSA) documented 134 attacks on health care in Syrian Arab Republic, causing 97 deaths including 108 attacks that affected health facilities, further weakening a health system burdened by seven years of conflict. Over the same period, the SSA reported 298 attacks causing 424 health personnel injuries in the occupied Palestinian territories. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, community fear and inadequate community sensitization measures led to attacks against health care workers and facilities causing the deaths of eight health care workers. These incidents are only a snapshot of the attacks reported in 2018 across many different countries and contexts.

Such attacks deprive people of urgently needed care, endanger health care providers, undermine health systems and long term public health goals, and contribute to the deterioration in the health and wellbeing of affected populations.