Part of an EU air bridge to Syria, the supplies crossed Turkey's southern Cilvegozu border post and were taken to a warehouse in the northwestern city of Idlib, Mrinalini Santhanam of the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

"There's one more air bridge and it is planned for February," she told AFP, saying it was "still in the planning stages" with talks "to determine the volume and the scale".

The supplies, which will be distributed to healthcare centres in Idlib and the Aleppo region, are part of an EU humanitarian bridge announced by Brussels on December 13.

The aim is to support Syria's battered healthcare system following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad by insurgents on December 8.

Included in the shipment were 8,000 emergency surgical kits, anaesthetic supplies, IV fluids, sterilisation materials and medications to prevent disease outbreaks, the WHO said.

The civil war, which broke out in 2011, devastated Syria's healthcare system, with "almost half of the hospitals (there) not functional", WHO planning analyst Lorenzo Dal Monte told AFP in late December.

He said the 50-tonne shipment from Dubai included "mainly trauma and surgical kits".

Another five tonnes of supplies were brought in from another stockpile in Demark, including emergency health kits as well as winter clothing and water purification tablets, the WHO said.