World Health Organization warns of “deadly diseases” in 2024 

The World Health Organization stated on Monday that it needs $1.5 billion in 2024 to provide essential assistance to tens of millions of people facing emergency health conditions, including in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.

The UN organization expects approximately 300 million people worldwide to need humanitarian aid and protection this year.

Among them, “about 166 million people will need life-saving humanitarian health assistance,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, in Geneva.

He added that his agency aims to reach around 87 million of the most vulnerable people and will need $1.5 billion to do so. “With the start of 2024, the World Health Organization has responded to 41 health crises, including 15 among the most severe crises.”

He warned that people living in such crises “are facing a painful start to a new year after 2023, which itself was a year of tremendous suffering that could have been avoided.”

He also said that “one in every five children in the world either lived in or fled from a conflict zone in 2023,” enumerating the crises witnessed globally during the past year, including wars in Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza.

He reminded of the worsening climate crisis, especially in 2023, which saw the highest temperatures ever recorded, coming close for the first time to the ceiling set in the Paris Agreement, defined as 1.5 degrees Celsius of climate warming.

The Director-General of the World Health Organization warned of “serious health impacts” due to this, starting with “catastrophic hunger” resulting from drought in the Horn of Africa, and ending with the spread of deadly diseases due to changes in climate patterns.

In 2023, funding appeals for providing health assistance in various locations received only an average of 12% of the required funds, according to Tedros.

He said, “The situation is heartbreaking and can be avoided. Therefore, we must act in 2024.”