World Health Organization, Public Health Situation Analysis (PHSA), Syrian Arab Republic, dated 23 July 2025, the second PHSA published on Syria by WHO
Source ID
SRC-283
Citation
World Health Organization, Public Health Situation Analysis (PHSA), Syrian Arab Republic, dated 23 July 2025, the second PHSA published on Syria by WHO
URL or path
research/SRC-283_WHO_PHSA_Syria_2025-07-23.pdf; page renders at research/SRC-283_pages/; https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/2021-dha-docs/phsa-syria-230725.pdf
Type
Institutional situation analysis, WHO
Hierarchy tier
1
Published
2025-07-23
Accessed
2026-08-20
Snapshot
Retrieved 20 August 2026, HTTP 200, 1,175,662 bytes, 28 pages. Page 19 read at the rendered image at 600 and 800 dpi, not from the text layer, and the footnote list read at pages 20 and 24. research/ is not committed
Claims
CH7 the health workforce departure range and facility functionality
Status
READ_IN_PART
Version history
The register keeps changing after the book is fixed in print. Each entry below was added to this row in the order shown.
GATE ITEM B2 OF THE REBUILT CHAPTER 7 GATE, AND IT FALSIFIES THE EARLIER BOOK'S USE OF IT WHILE STRENGTHENING THE BOOK'S OWN ARGUMENT. THE EARLIER BOOK, AT SOURCE LINE 1555, PRESENTS THIS DOCUMENT AS THE MIDDLE OF THREE ANSWERS: it says the PHSA 'puts it lower, saying that up to half of the country's healthcare workers are believed to have left'. THAT IS HALF OF WHAT THIS DOCUMENT SAYS. BOTH FIGURES ARE ON PAGE 19, AND BOTH WERE READ FROM THE RENDERED PAGE AT 800 DPI. VERBATIM, FIRST: 'and over 50- 70% of the health workforce has left the country, putting immense pressure on those who remain.' with footnote 219. VERBATIM, SECOND, under the heading Healthcare Workforce (HWF): 'Reports indicate that approximately 930 healthcare professionals have been killed during the war. However, the primary reason for workforce decline appears to be migration. Up to half of the country's healthcare workers are believed to have left, driven mainly by insecurity and economic hardship.' with footnote 20. THE TWO FOOTNOTES POINT AT DIFFERENT SECONDARY SOURCES AND NEITHER IS A SURVEY. Footnote 219 is 'Health Cluster (2025), Health Sector Syria - Health Sector Bulletin - May 2025'. Footnote 20 is 'OCHA (2025), Global Humanitarian Overview 2025 - The Cruel Math of Aid Cuts (Hyper-Prioritized Report) - June 2025'. SO THE FINDING IS BETTER THAN THE ONE THE EARLIER BOOK MADE. It is not that three documents disagree. It is that ONE WHO DOCUMENT CARRIES TWO INCOMPATIBLE FIGURES FOR THE SAME QUANTITY ON ONE PAGE, each borrowed from a different humanitarian report, and reconciles neither. A THIRD FIGURE ON THE SAME PAGE, RECORDED AS PRINTED BECAUSE IT CANNOT BE READ OTHERWISE. VERBATIM AT 800 DPI: 'The Whole of Syria (WoS) Q4 2024 Health Resources and Services Availability Monitoring System analysis indicated that 5 43% of hospitals and 55 63% of primary health facilities are either partially functioning or not functional.' with footnote 217. THE STRAY 5 AND 55 ARE ON THE RENDERED PAGE AND ARE NOT A TEXT-LAYER ARTEFACT; the reading was checked against the image precisely because a text-layer reading of another WHO document was wrong on 19 August. The figures 43 and 63 are the complements of the 57 and 37 the earlier book gives at source 1559, which is consistent, but THIS DOCUMENT AS PRINTED DOES NOT STATE THEM UNAMBIGUOUSLY and no reading may be asserted from it. ALSO AVAILABLE AND NOT YET USED: approximately 930 healthcare professionals killed during the war; 172 health facilities in north-west Syria at risk of closure affecting 4.24 million people; 23 facilities suspended in the north-east and 68 at risk.