Tripoli, 12 May 2020 – Over the past few months, WHO has dispatched over 136 tons of essential health kits to 45 hospitals and health facilities throughout Libya.
Items distributed include enough emergency health kits and noncommunicable disease kits to treat almost 650 000 people for 3 months, trauma kits to treat over 4000 wounded patients, surgical kits to treat 850 patients and diarrhoeal disease kits containing enough medicines and supplies to treat up to 7000 people. WHO has also dispatched laboratory supplies and medicines to treat acute respiratory infections.
“Ordinary Libyans continue to bear the brunt of the crisis. In spite of appeals for a ceasefire, the conflict continues,” said Elizabeth Hoff, WHO Representative in Libya. “In much of west Libya, just when the summer heat is intensifying, cuts to electricity and water networks have disrupted health care services and increased the risk of communicable disease outbreaks. People in the south have very limited access to health care, and those in the east have great difficulty obtaining essential medicines from public health care facilities. The supplies we have distributed since March this year will help keep health care facilities open and ensure that vulnerable Libyans can obtain life-saving medicines and health care.”
WHO thanks the following donors whose generous contributions were used to procure the above supplies: the European Union Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom Department for International Development and the United States Agency for International Development.
