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Lack of medicine, hygiene, food and other consequences Israel attacks they shot illnesses contagious to extremes never before seen in A loopthat winter could get worse. A broken
Lack of medicine, hygiene, food and other consequences Israel attacks they shot illnesses contagious to extremes never before seen in A loopthat winter could get worse.
A broken healthcare system, hours-long queues to get in and out of the bathroom. famine unprecedented since Ethiopia or Somalia. Cases of a long list of diseases have increased by thousands in the Palestinian Strip after two and a half months of ongoing Israeli military offensive.
“Catastrophic” is defined by Dr. Marwan Shafik Ali. This is the same term that international and humanitarian organizations repeat non-stop in reference to a crisis that continues to worsen.
The doctor runs the Mohammed Youssef El-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, in the south of the coastal enclave, where More than a million Ghatazi gathered together to escape Israeli bombs.
Photo: Reuters
“Previously, the population of the city of Rafah was 300 thousand people, but now with the resettlement it has reached 1 million 300 thousand,” he commented EFE.
“Medical teams had difficulty treating a large number of patients with infectious diseases, but now they can no longer tolerate it,” the doctor lamented.
More than 95,500 cases of diarrhea, a further 19,300 of scabies, 17,500 parasites, 4,000 smallpox, 1,900 food poisoning, meningitis and other diseases have been recorded as the number is feared to double.
Photo: EFE
His figures, handwritten on a piece of paper, are supported by statistics from international agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO), which has warned that diarrhea cases are 25 times higher than before the Israeli attacks began in October.
WHO increases the number of diarrhea cases to more than 100 thousand, half of which occur in children under 5 years of age, and to more than 150 thousand cases of respiratory infections, as well as meningitis, scabies, lice, chickenpox and others.
“If it’s cold, flu and respiratory diseases will spread,” a doctor fears, as winter could further worsen the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
“There are more than 20 people in a four-by-four-meter tent, which is how the flu spreads,” he continues. “In displaced persons camps, schools are turned into shelters and houses where many families live together.
Photo: EFE
Fuel to power hospitals and the production of potable water, both for drinking and for washing in the fields where thousands of displaced people are concentrated, are just part of another long list of needs in the Sector: many diseases could be easily cured if mass media existed . .
In one of these schools, converted into a reception center, family doctor Mosaab al-Mubayed helps the Al-Quds school in central Rafah, where about 2,500 people, many girls and boys, are sheltering.
He arrived there with his family a month ago from northern Gaza: “With only a team of nurses, they needed doctors.”
But they don’t have enough medicine, and those that are coming through organizations like UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, are “very, very few” and they are forced, “unfortunately, to give fewer doses,” he laments.
Smallpox, malaria and diarrhea are just some of the diseases that spread unchecked, especially among children in overcrowded displacement camps without medical care.
Like his colleague, he insists that many of these diseases are easily treatable if basic drugs such as paracetamol were available, but without them many children could die: “The future looks bleak.”
They experience cases of food poisoning from eating large quantities of canned food, since hunger does not look at the expiration date, which leads to severe diarrhea.
Children who arrive in critical condition with no ambulance to take them to hospital or minimal resources to make an accurate diagnosis among so many illnesses.
Yana, 14 years old, came to the department with a cough and high temperature, she had pneumonia, but there were no adequate medications and she had to be offered alternatives.
“An example of the situation we have here,” he says. (EFE/Anas Baba)
Source: Aristegui Noticias
As an experienced journalist and author, Mary has been reporting on the latest news and trends for over 5 years. With a passion for uncovering the stories behind the headlines, Mary has earned a reputation as a trusted voice in the world of journalism. Her writing style is insightful, engaging and thought-provoking, as she takes a deep dive into the most pressing issues of our time.
