WHO, UK Cooperate to Support Drought-Affected Communities in Somalia

Mogadishu: The United Kingdom (UK) government and the World Health Organization (WHO) country office in Somalia have recently signed an agreement to support WHO’s emergency health response to the current drought in the country. 
 
In support of Federal and State Ministries of Health in Somalia, this important contribution will enable WHO to prevent and mitigate the adverse impacts of drought on health of the women, children and other vulnerable populations impacted by the ongoing drought, one of the worst in recent history. 
 
The contribution received from the UK Government will enable WHO to scale up and sustain its integrated health and nutrition interventions in some of the worst affected, hard-to-reach and inaccessible areas where the people have been devoid of basic health and nutrition services for decades. 

The delivery of these interventions has targeted women and children, among other vulnerable groups, as they have been the worst affected in this drought. 
 
In addition, with this new funding from the UK, WHO will support deployment of a number of mobile outreach teams in these areas for administering childhood vaccines, supporting antenatal care thorough the provision of iron and folic tablets to pregnant women, treatment and referral of sick and malnourished children, as well as treatment and care of women and children with common ailments. 
 
With a focus on 16 operational priority-one districts, severely affected by the ongoing drought, WHO expects that approximately 2 million people will be reached through these integrated health and nutrition activities. 
 
"The situation remains dire. Disease and lack of access to health care pose the biggest threat to millions of Somalis impacted by the drought. WHO’s unique expertise and emergency health response is critical. This new UK support to the WHO will save lives and avert famine and its consequences,"  said UK’s Development Director for the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office Somalia Damon Bristow in a media release on Sunday.
 
In addition, with this funding support, WHO will support conducting prospective and real-time mortality surveillance through a national and international academic institution to estimate “excess death” from all causes attributed to drought, a measure which is often used to declare famine and also a proxy to better understand the effectiveness of the humanitarian operational response. 
 
"As the threat of famine is looming large, this timely contribution from the UK will help us to save lives among the most vulnerable populations affected by this drought, the scale of which is unprecedented. This support will ensure that we sustain our community-based health and nutrition interventions, including surveillance for early detection of epidemic-prone diseases in some of the most challenging and operating environment that our agency has worked in in recent time." WHO Representative to Somalia Dr Mamunur Rahman Malik said.
 
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