The Weaponization of Healthcare in Conflict
The Impact on Outbreaks and Pandemic Threats
Dr. Annie Sparrow
with Kenneth Roth (opening remarks) and Meg Jones (moderator)
THURSDAY, 20 MARCH 2025, 10:00 EASTERN
The protection of healthcare institutions and workers was the foundation of international humanitarian law, yet today a disturbing number of nefarious forces are flouting this basic principle. They find advantage in depriving civilians of health care at a moment of acute need, even though such weaponization of health care is a war crime.
Dr. Annie Sparrow, with decades of experience operating in situations of armed conflict and humanitarian crisis, will describe this disturbing trend and its implications for civilian protection. Such attacks obviously have devastating effects for war-torn societies in urgent need of health care, but they also threaten the rest of the world, because armed conflicts can be engines for global threats, from incubators of infectious diseases to drivers of antimicrobial resistance. If concern for the rights of people in the midst of war is not enough to stop these attacks, our interest in our own health should be.