Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Preparedness for humanitarian crises needs to be improved

2006; BMJ; Volume: 333; Issue: 7573 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1136/bmj.38994.548125.94

0959-8138

Altaf Musani, Irshad Ali Shaikh,

Health and Conflict Studies

An estimated 4.1 billion people were affected by natural disasters, including earthquakes, floods, landslides, and drought, during 1984-2003.1 Over 160 countries experienced such disasters in 2004, and these, together with industrial incidents such as chemical spills, resulted in over 350 000 deaths.2 One of the most common human generated disasters, however, is conflict.3 In the past decade there have been over 38 major conflicts globally, with 70% of the victims being civilians. The percentage of civilians killed and injured in conflict has been increasing, and is currently around 90%.4 In the World Health Organization's Eastern Mediterranean region, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Somalia, and Sudan are currently struggling to deal with prolonged conflicts. The United Nations emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, described the conflicts in Somalia, Sudan, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as the three most challenging current humanitarian situations (box).5 They have affected 10 million people, of whom 6.5 million have been displaced from their homes and around 200 000 have died.6 The long history of ethnic, religious, and geographic tensions in these areas make it unlikely that the health and humanitarian problems are going to decrease. Poor and marginalised members of society are most often exposed to disasters and least capable of coping when they occur.7 The infrastructure of cities such as Karachi, Lahore, Cairo, Tehran, Sanaa, Kabul, Mogadishu, Hargeisa, Khartoum, and Baghdad can no longer cope with the growing populations. Hundreds of thousands of people live in slums or low income housing. These homes are relatively unsafe because they are of poor structural quality or in high risk locations, which is likely to compound future emergencies. In 2001 WHO set up a dedicated emergency and humanitarian action unit in Cairo to provide technical and public health expertise and …