DUBLIN Protracted and messy wars mean over 600 million women and children worldwide struggle to access essential health care, according to estimates published in The Lancet medical journal., according to estimates published in The Lancet medical journal. By 2019, the authors wrote, there were 54 "state-based armed conflicts" in 35 countries - wars that had lasted an average of two decades and presented a "growing threat to humanitarian access and the delivery of essential health services, affecting at least 630 million women and children." The research team, from nine institutions, including Stanford University and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, estimated that by 2017, 10 per cent of the world's women and 6 per cent of children "were either forcibly displaced or living dangerously close to conflict zones." From 2009-17, the number of women and children displaced by fighting jumped from around 30 million to over 50 million, wit