Citation

Masebo TM, Fikadu BK, Mehari E, Gelaye B, Habte A, Mersha TB, Begna K. BMJ Glob. Health 2022; 7(3): e008263.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, BMJ Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1136/bmjgh-2021-008263

PMID

35361659

Abstract

The untoward effects of war on healthcare infrastructure, health professionals and the general welfare of populations in conflict zones are well established.1 2 A rigorous assessment of the impact of each conflict is critically important to help policy-makers formulate and implement remedial measures during and after the conflict.3 However, due to security, political, ethical and other obstacles associated with wars and related armed conflicts, gathering reliable health data and information in the course of an active war is exceedingly challenging.4 The reliability of information is often compromised by the inherently partisan nature of the primary sources and the constantly changing power balance on the ground. These dilemmas are complicated by the ubiquitous social media, where there is the tendency to disseminate disinformation and misleadingly alarming messages without accountability. The problem is further aggravated when the information is intended for use as an instrument of propaganda by the warring parties.

We carefully reviewed the article by Gesesew et al5 which attempts to document the impact of war on the health system of the Tigray region in Ethiopia. While the authors acknowledge the limitations of their work, the paper is regrettably fraught with inaccuracies, factual errors, gross misrepresentations and inflammatory statements.

To fully characterise the health impacts of the conflict in Ethiopia and appreciate the flaws of the paper,5 it is important to contextualise the complex backdrop of the crises which involves long festering internal ethnic grievances, regional rivalries and global power struggles.

In this commentary, we highlight the glaring shortcomings of the paper5 including methodological flaws, inflammatory statements and reporting of misleading statistics, and make suggestions for the need to conduct comprehensive research on the health system impacts of the crises not only in Tigray but also in other parts of Ethiopia that are affected by the conflict...

Language: en

Keywords

health systems