Citation

Maziak W. Int. J. Public Health 2018; 63(3): 311-312.

Affiliation

Department of Epidemiology, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th St., Miami, FL, 33139, USA. wmaziak@fiu.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00038-018-1084-8

PMID

29464267

Abstract

Syria used to be a small peaceful country of 23 million. It is on this land that humanity first learned the basics of civilized association, witnessed the birth of the first alphabet, and cultivated the world’s main religions. Today, Syria is very sick, and the sickness is engulfing the people, history, and thousands of years of coexistence of cultures. Syria’s health calamity was a direct result of the ongoing war, but also of failure of the international system for peace and security.

By the end of 2017, it is believed that about 12.8 million Syrians are in need of medical assistance, and 5.6 million in need of humanitarian assistance (Devi 2018). With sanitation, electricity, and clean water systems all affected by the war, the threat of large-scale epidemics, famine, and continued refugees outflow became a reality. Credible evidence documented outbreaks of typhoid fever, hepatitis, leishmaniasis, measles, tuberculosis, and the old scourge of polio in Syria (Ismail et al. 2016). Famine is not only threatening people in besieged areas but is used by the Syrian regime as a war strategy to force the surrender of hard-held resistance areas, as recently witnessed in Eastern Ghouta. As war continues, the sick, old, and disabled citizens are forced to leave their homes, creating an ever-needier refugees population.

One of the first victims of the Syrian war has been the breakdown of healthcare services. As the war deepened, most physicians fled the country leaving the majority of healthcare facilities either understaffed or closed...

Language: en