Health interventions lag behind needs - UNICEF

Despite the considerable resources invested in health care in southern Sudan over the years, the impact they have made "seems pale in comparison to the continuing needs", says the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF, in a new report. A combination of chronic underdevelopment, acute natural disasters and ongoing civil strife, meant that health care needs were still not being met in many places, said the agency in a report entitled "Overview of the Health Situation in Sudan 2002". "Access to health care is not good and it is not improving," the author of the report, Dr Michaleen Richer, told IRIN. Without roads and transport to bring people to health services, communications systems between health workers and people living in rural areas, and higher levels of education to allow people to diagnose correctly and prevent illness from occurring, no real impact would be made, she said. She added that routine immunisations and preventative health care were "very poorly supported" by local Sudanese populations, who had to concern themselves with the basic needs in life - finding food, clothing and shelter. Similarly mothers were unable to walk for kilometers to a health centre to access medical care during pregnancy, she said. "One of the leading failures in health interventions is care for pregnant mothers and women of child-bearing age," noted Richer. Only 22 percent of deliveries in southern Sudan were attended by a trained health care worker, UNICEF reported. Sudan has only about 1,500 hospital beds for the some eight million people in the rebel-controlled areas of Equatoria, Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile, the Nuba mountains and Southern Blue Nile. Many of the most common illnesses in Sudan are easily preventable and treatable, if people could only access quality health care. Malaria is the most common illness diagnosed by health workers, followed by diarrhoeal infections, respiratory ailments, intestinal parasites, eye and skin diseases and sexually transmitted diseases. Others include Guinea worm, trachoma, onchocerciasis, elephantiasis, sleeping sickness, Kala azar, TB, and leprosy. Sudan currently had 80 percent of the world's Guinea worm cases, according to Richer, which could easily be prevented if people had access to clean water. There are currently about 66 agencies involved in health provision to southern Sudan - 19 of which are Sudanese agencies - but the spread of their services is unequal. Equatoria has 26 percent of the population and 48 percent of the facilities, while Bahr el Ghazal has 49 percent of the population and only 21 percent of the facilities. In the rebel-controlled areas of Southern Blue Nile there are only four agencies operating and in the Nuba Mountains only three. In 2002, it is estimated that more than US $55 million was spent by agencies on health care in southern Sudan, UNICEF reported. To receive a copy of the report contact [email protected]