{"id":51727,"date":"2020-08-10T10:30:11","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T08:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/central-african-republic\/coronavirus-south-sudan-jonglei-state-clashes-leave-hundreds-dead-and-injured-as-covid-19-reduces-international-committee-of-the-red-cross-icrc-surgical-capacity-by-30\/"},"modified":"2020-08-10T10:30:11","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T08:30:11","slug":"coronavirus-south-sudan-jonglei-state-clashes-leave-hundreds-dead-and-injured-as-covid-19-reduces-international-committee-of-the-red-cross-icrc-surgical-capacity-by-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/central-african-republic\/coronavirus-south-sudan-jonglei-state-clashes-leave-hundreds-dead-and-injured-as-covid-19-reduces-international-committee-of-the-red-cross-icrc-surgical-capacity-by-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus – South Sudan: Jonglei State clashes leave hundreds dead and injured as COVID-19 reduces International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) surgical capacity by 30%"},"content":{"rendered":"

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An eruption of intercommunal violence in Jonglei State in northeastern South Sudan has left hundreds dead, many more injured and thousands displaced. COVID-19 restrictions make it far more difficult to evacuate the wounded by air and provide surgical care for trauma injuries. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) evacuated 23 people by air this week, but its beds are nearly full and estimates that COVID-19 measures reduced its surgical capacity by 30 percent.*<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In 2020, to date, the ICRC has treated more than 320 people with gunshot wounds \u2013 nearly half of the total number treated in the whole of 2019 (769).<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we see the same level of violence that we saw in 2019 we can expect a greater loss of life and deeper suffering as COVID-19 hampers our ability to respond,\u201d said James Reynolds, the ICRC\u2019s head of delegation in South Sudan. \u201cIf COVID-19 continues to spread and overwhelms South Sudan\u2019s already fragile health system, the capacity to treat gunshot injuries will be even lower. Many health care facilities are also dealing with spikes in diseases such as malaria that are brought on by the rainy season.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February and early March 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic reached South Sudan, similar clashes between armed men in Jonglei State injured hundreds of people and prompted the ICRC to mobilize all its surgical units. In a three-week period, 144 people were evacuated by air to ICRC surgical wards\u2014a patient-load that would be impossible to care for today with the limitations that COVID-19 brings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot provide surgical care for people injured in violence to same scale as we did last year due to COVID-19,\u201d said Ana Lucia Bueno, the health coordinator for the ICRC in South Sudan. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to rotate in surgeons. We can\u2019t responsibly bring many people from an area without COVID-19 cases to one with them for surgery. Physical distancing measures meant we had to reduce the number of beds in our wards. Our concern is that if violence continues, many people will lose their lives to gunshot injuries simply because they will be unable to get medical care.\u201d<\/p>\n

A South Sudan Red Cross volunteer and a nurse working for M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res were among those killed in the violence which broke out on May 16.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleagues in the humanitarian community, including at the South Sudan Red Cross and M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res,\u201d said Reynolds. \u201cTheir deaths are a stark reminder of the senseless loss of life resulting from these attacks. We call on all those engaged in the violence to respect human life and dignity, and to take tangible steps to prevent further violent clashes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The ICRC had to reduce the number of beds in its wards to put in place physical distancing measures. It also lost its ability to quickly scale up the number of hospital beds in the event of a large patient influx due to the need to implement COVID-19 preventive measures. Before COVID-19, its surgical ward in Akobo had a maximum 35-bed capacity and Juba Military Hospital had 80. Today, the two wards together have an 80-bed capacity (Akobo with 30, Juba with 50), a reduction of 30% in bed-capacity.<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).<\/i>
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Source<\/a>
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South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Central Africa Central African Republic<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Download logo An eruption of intercommunal violence in Jonglei State in northeastern South Sudan has left hundreds dead, many more injured and thousands displaced. COVID-19 restrictions make it far more difficult to evacuate the wounded by air and provide surgical care for trauma injuries. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) evacuated 23 people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":51728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/63e2ff12d465344.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[252],"tags":[258,256,6796,302,5707,4696,4689,303,12379,5857,32489,32926,8816,8096,6529,17293,6710,4337,35080,6775,257,10722,10446,5069,254,6017,4708,13822],"class_list":["post-51727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-central-african-republic","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-capacity","tag-car","tag-car-news","tag-central-africa","tag-central-african-republic","tag-central-african-republic-news","tag-clashes","tag-committee","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid19","tag-cross","tag-dead","tag-hundreds","tag-icrc","tag-injured","tag-international","tag-jonglei","tag-leave","tag-news","tag-red","tag-reduces","tag-south","tag-south-africa-today","tag-state","tag-sudan","tag-surgical"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/63e2ff12d465344.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}