Addis Ababa, Feb 14 (IANS): The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has said that it only received 7 per cent of the $323.1 million it requires to meet the needs of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees in the East African country.

The UNHCR is working to meet the needs of refugees and IDPs despite the funding gap and incidence of armed conflicts in some of the areas it operates, the agency said in its monthly fact sheet issued on Saturday.

It is engaged in the training of health personnel and the distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) and essential medicines and materials to strengthen health services in refugee camps in Ethiopia, Xinhua news agency quoted the UN body as saying.

The UNHCR is also supporting the inter-agency Covid-19 response to the IDP situation by providing PPE and sanitation materials, equipping isolation and quarantine centres and providing community sensitisation, it said.

Ethiopia's confirmed Covid-19 cases reached 145,704, the Ministry of Health said.

Ethiopia is the third largest refugee-hosting country in Africa, sheltering 801,349 registered refugees and asylum-seekers, mostly from South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan, as of January 31, 2021.

The country also has several million IDPs, including 2.2 million who were forced to flee the conflict that broke out last November in the northern Tigray regional state.