WHO action in Ukraine

The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine has affected 4.4 million people and led to the displacement of 1.6 million. Of those, over 3 million needed humanitarian assistance.

After years of conflict, health care resources in conflict-affected areas of Ukraine are severely stretched and humanitarian funding is plummeting. Health facilities continue to be damaged by heavy shelling and health care staff fear being killed or having to leave their country. The health of millions of Ukrainians is hampered by limited access to health facilities, services and medicines for both acute and chronic conditions, and by insufficient funding for humanitarian health interventions.

Since 2014, WHO has led and coordinated the health strand of the international humanitarian response in Ukraine. Working with local and international partners, WHO helps provide primary care services and essential medication on both sides of the contact line. It facilitates access to emergency and specialist care when needed, provision of ambulances and medicines including vaccines and drugs to combat tuberculosis (TB), diabetes, HIV and cancer. WHO is one of the few organizations with access to all areas, on both sides of the contact line.

The WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE) operates through WHO’s main office in Kyiv and three field offices in Donetsk, Luhansk and Slavyansk. In 2017–2018, WHO and its partners supported around 2.5 million people in eastern Ukraine with medical supplies. WHO and its partners have provided assistance for expectant mothers, along with mental and psychosocial support, and WHO is looking ahead by building recovery and sustainability initiatives into its activities.

The situation remains extremely grave: exchanges of fire are a commonplace on the contact line, while at least 160 health facilities have been targeted since the onset of the crisis and 130 are still not fully operational. The threat of far wider health ramifications remains, with facilities such as water treatment plants coming under fire, and there is inadequate treatment of TB cases. As its health services have faltered, Ukraine has recorded one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe.

Yet international financial assistance has been insufficient, forcing WHO to terminate or restrict key programmes. Lack of funding helps explain acute shortages of qualified medical staff, medical supplies and equipment, which limit access to health care, particularly in areas close to the contact line. Hundreds of health facilities have reported insufficient stocks of supplies and basic medicines.

The crisis threatens not just Ukrainians, but all Europeans because low vaccination rates and poor communicable disease surveillance risk the spread of serious diseases such as TB, especially its drug resistant form.

Other areas in need of urgent attention include:

• communicable diseases surveillance;
• access to medications for cancer patients; and
• access to mental health and rehabilitation care.