Haiti Needs Strong COVID-19 Response to Maintain National Stability

(United Nations News) The UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH) and 19 UN agencies there have been working together to support a country in the throes of a pandemic that could challenge the nation’s delicate balance of stability, security and development, the head of the Mission told the Security Council on Friday.

Against the backdrop of longstanding fragility, exacerbated by 18 months of a protracted political, economic, social and institutional crisis, the pandemic is “stretching this country’s already fragile health system and testing its meager social safety net”, Special Representative and head of BINUH, Helen La Lime, said via videoconference (VTC).

“A country of more than 11 million inhabitants, Haiti currently only has the capacity to treat a few hundred patients at a time”, she continued, also drawing attention to “suboptimal coordination within the State” and “inadequate funding of the national response plan”. 

Ms. La Lime also maintained that if the public health and socioeconomic dimensions of the pandemic are not addressed urgently, they risk further aggravating the humanitarian and socioeconomic situation, threatening significant human suffering and large population outflows – significantly impacting the whole region.

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