The WHO on Tuesday "warned that the ongoing conflict in Syria, which will soon enter its third year, will lead to a sharp spike in the number of people needing urgent aid, including food, clean water and vital medical services," the U.N. News Centre reports (2/5). "Further aggravating the health of Syrians, the organization said, is a breakdown in the delivery of safe water throughout the country; the closing of at least one-third of Syria's public hospitals; an exodus of doctors; and an acute shortage of ambulances, many of them damaged by fighting or impounded by the military or insurgent forces for use in combat," according to the New York Times (Cumming-Bruce/Gladstone, 2/5).