The impact on health of a war in Europe

Abstract

No sooner than the pandemic appeared to have reached some semblance of control (barring the emergence of yet another, and potentially more aggressive variant), Russia launched an all-out invasion of its neighboring country, Ukraine. The dire impact on lives, infrastructure and property to the Ukrainian people has already been enormous and shows no signs of abating. Indeed, the possibility of this war (how else can it be described?) escalating and ‘spilling over’ to other adjoining countries is very real and seriously raises the spectre of yet another world war, again with its epicentre in Europe. Even without further escalation, the destabilisation of the Ukrainian population has already resulted in the greatest refugee crisis facing Europe, presently being ‘managed’ by the impressive rallying of support being offered by many European countries, within and outside of the EU. Unless there is a timely cessation of hostilities and the senseless loss of life and wanton destruction in Ukraine stops, this refugee crisis threatens to overwhelm the support services. Poland, geographically a direct neighbour of Ukraine and, to-date, the greatest recipient of refugees has asked other countries to offload some of its burden 1. To-date, this has occurred, for example, for specific subgroups with special health needs such as children receiving treatment for malignant diseases who have been transferred onwards to other countries including Malta.2 The continued disruption or total breakdown of community-based health services such as vaccination programmes in Ukraine (for now) will risk the emergence of hitherto controlled infections and encourage the emergence of new pathogens.3 New COVID variants are certainly not exempt from this scenario.