United Nations: Gaza is threatened by epidemics and famine

Capitals, (ST) – World Health Organization (WHO) spokeswoman Margaret Harris confirmed today that the collapse of the health system in the Gaza Strip increases the risk of the spread of a major epidemic.

RT website quoted Harris as saying in statements: Evidence and indicators of a major epidemic exist. She expressed the World Health Organization’s particular concern about the risks of the spread of diseases and epidemics among nearly a million displaced children in Gaza.

Harris  explained that in the light of the cold and rainy weather, “there is a real state of hunger and famine threatening 90 percent of the people in Gaza Strip.”

Harris highlighted the difficulty and impossibility of providing emergency services and treating the injured in northern Gaza after 28 out of 36 hospitals have become out of service, with partial services being provided in 8 hospitals that do not easily obtain medical supplies.

In turn, James Elder, spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said: Gaza’s children are living in a catastrophic situation in the most dangerous place for children in the world. He referred to the aggressive bombing of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis which houses hundreds of seriously injured children, in addition to hundreds of displaced women and children in the light of the scarcity of food and water.

Elder warned that diarrheal diseases among Gaza’s children have become fatal in the light of the high rates of malnutrition. He said that recently displaced children in the southern Gaza Strip receive less than the daily minimum amount of water to survive.

Nada Haj Khidr