Urgent help needed for millions of children affected by conflicts and disasters, says UNICEF

That’s the message from the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF, whose Deputy Executive Director for Humanitarian Action and Supply Operations, Ted Chaiban, said that flexible funding for aid is shrinking.

At the same time, attacks against humanitarian actors around the world have surged.

Innocent victims

“Children should not be paying the price of our inaction with their lives and their futures”, Mr. Chaiban said, stressing that youngsters need continued access to essential services including healthcare, safe water, basic sanitation and education.

Earlier this week UNICEF launched a $9.3 billion emergency funding appeal to reach close to 94 million children in 155 countries in 2024.

Mr. Chaiban said that this year’s ask was only about 50 per cent met and listed a number of “critically underfunded emergencies”.

These include Sudan, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Myanmar, Haiti, Ethiopia, Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan and Bangladesh.

A lack of resources means that “choices will need to be made” regarding several essential interventions including immunisation, primary healthcare, treatment against severe acute malnutrition, and psychosocial support.

Also in jeopardy are the means of addressing grave violations against children such as recruitment by armed groups, and basic education which is also “a life-saving intervention in emergencies”, said UNICEF.

DR Congo mpox spread accelerating: WHO

A deadly mpox outbreak in the DRC has been rapidly spreading across the country, raising concerns of international transmission, the UN health agency WHO said on Friday.

Over 13,000 cases have been reported through mid-November with over 600 deaths including in three provinces not previously affected, WHO said.

The UN health agency reported that the strain of the virus responsible for the current DRC outbreak, called clade I, is more virulent than the predominant strain in the 2022 global outbreak - clade II.

The DRC outbreak outpaces the global mpox case fatality ratio fourfold - and up to nine times in endemic areas.

Human-to-human transmission in areas in which mpox is endemic is accelerating and 70 per cent of cases there are in children under 15.

Alarm over sexual transmission

Concerningly, the DRC outbreak has seen the first reported sexual transmission of clade I mpox and WHO warned that it is now “moving through sexual networks that include male and female sex workers and their clients in areas with high population mobility”.

The crisis is further compounded by the fact that the DRC is simultaneously facing a cholera outbreak and a protracted humanitarian emergency driven by armed violence and mass displacement.

WHO has been supporting the DRC Ministry of Health with the detection and confirmation of cases as well as ramping up treatment.

The country does not yet have access to mpox vaccines and work is being done with the health authorities to develop an immunisation strategy and help move towards vaccine approval, WHO said.