ReliefWeb

Highlights

• The reporting period saw the highest weekly number of cases and deaths recorded since the beginning of the epidemic. There are 175,340 active cases in the region out of a total of 614,286 recorded cases.

• UNICEF and WHO have warned that an additional 51,000 children under the age of five might die in MENA by end of 2020 due to COVID-19’s disruption in primary health care.

• More than 3.5 million children and women have received essential healthcare services to date and 1.5 million caregivers were reached with messages on breastfeeding. Public campaigns have been initiated or expanded to promote the use of basic health and social services, as well as the provision of psychosocial support to parents and children, notably in Morocco, Syria and Yemen.

• UNICEF has reached 186 million people with RCCE messages and nearly 28 million people were engaged through social media interaction and community engagement initiatives. New efforts are now undertaken to also alleviate families’ and communities’ fears to utilize primary health care services.

• UNICEF has reached a total of approximately 7.2 million people across the region with critical WASH supplies, and more than 44,000 healthcare workers received Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs). In Iran, UNICEF has assisted the Government in the most affected provinces with the procurement of 63.5 metric tons of PPEs.

• UNICEF is supporting the Ministries of Education in the undertaking of the final exams of the 2019/2020 school year, either online or in schools, including in the State of Palestine, Egypt, Syria and Jordan.