Sharjah24 – AFP: Limited access to clean water in northern Syria is causing a rise in illnesses and undermining the battle against Covid-19, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said Tuesday.
The medical aid group blamed the "acute water crisis" in recent months on a decrease in funding for water, sanitation and hygiene operations as well as the destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure during a decade of civil war.
"We are regularly confronted with the health impact of poor water quality, which often brings waterborne diseases and other health issues into the camps, such as diarrhoea, hepatitis, impetigo, scabies and many others," MSF's Ibrahim Mughlaj said.
The crisis is most acute in northwestern Syria, the country's last major rebel stronghold, where more than three million people live in squalid conditions.
Water and sanitation aid operations are funded at only a third of last year's levels, MSF said, adding that much less water was being trucked in.
"In July 2021, our teams noticed rising diarrhoea cases in more than 30 camps in Idlib governorate and also detected frequent scabies cases," it added.
"Since the beginning of the year, 28 percent of the total consultations in an MSF-supported hospital in Idlib governorate were reported as acute watery diarrhoea cases."
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