The World Health Organization's European chief said on Tuesday that at least 3,000 people had died in Ukraine since Russia's invasion in February because they had been unable to access treatments for chronic diseases.
So far, the U.N. health agency has documented some 200 attacks in Ukraine on healthcare facilities, and few hospitals are currently functioning, Hans Kluge told a regional meeting of WHO's 53 member states as well as senior agency colleagues.
"Forty percent of households have at least one member in need of chronic treatment that they can no longer find, resulting in an estimated at least 3,000 premature avoidable deaths," he said in a speech, mentioning diseases such as HIV/AIDS and cancer.
