Attachments
Highlights
• 24 February 2023 marked one year since the escalation of the war in Ukraine and WHO has been working more actively than ever in the country.
• As of early March 2023 WHO’s Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care (SSA) has verified over 830 attacks in Ukraine, with nearly 740 attacks impacting health facilities.
• WHO has delivered essential medicines and supplies to areas close to the front line in Ukraine, reaching 118 000 people with key health interventions. Up to 12 United Nations (UN) interagency humanitarian convoys reached more than a dozen settlements in the Kharkiv,
Donetsk and Zaporizhzhya regions with supplies, including interagency health kits, trauma supplies and medicines to treat noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
• WHO, in collaboration with national and regional health authorities, is using data collection and monitoring tools to assess health-care resources and service availability to inform critical health-care interventions in areas impacted by the war.
• To foster Kharkiv oblast-specific coordination of Partner activities, the Health Cluster established the Kharkiv Subnational Health Cluster in February 2023.
• The Polish Medical Centre of Postgraduate Education (CMKP) course “Organization of health care in Poland” registered 1157 new users in February. The course, developed with WHO support, is aimed at medical professionals from Ukraine and other countries who would like to start working in the Polish national health system.
• WHO continues to closely monitor the utilization of health-care services among Ukrainian refugees in hosting countries. Since March 2022 WHO has carried out or contributed to 21 surveys/assessments on access to health care to better understand the barriers refugees may face in receiving care.
Humanitarian situation
Ukraine has seen intense hostilities since the war began on 24 February 2022. This has led to a grave humanitarian crisis, with millions of people in dire need. This includes refugees who have arrived in other countries, those who have been displaced within Ukraine, and those in areas either not under Government control or recently retaken. As the country marked one year since the escalation of the war on 24 February 2023, WHO has been working more actively than ever in Ukraine.
As of 26 February 2023 the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has reported a total of 21 580 civilian casualties in Ukraine since the war began, of which 8101 were killed and 13 479 were injured.
From 30 January to 27 February 2023 OHCHR recorded 2923 civilian casualties in Ukraine, of which 991 were killed and 1932 were injured.
In line with the standard operating procedures of the global SSA, WHO has verified 833 reported attacks on health care between 24 February 2022 and 28 February 2023. These have resulted in 136 reported injuries and 101 reported deaths of health-care personnel and patients.
As of 28 February 2023 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has recorded 8.1 million refugees from Ukraine in Europe. A total of 4.8 million were registered for temporary protection or similar national protection schemes in Europe. For cross-border movements, 19 million crossings out of Ukraine and 10.6 million crossings into Ukraine were recorded. These latter figures do not reflect individuals.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that 5.4 million people are internally displaced across Ukraine as of 23 January 2023, a slight decrease from 5.9 million on 5 December 2022 (Fig. 1). The estimated number of people internally displaced within Ukraine has been steadily declining since August 2022.