in , , ,

Polio stalking Gaza where healthworkers fear to tread

Alameen Templeton

Child-malnutrition and starvation case numbers are soaring in Gaza as the Israeli genocide grinds on, unashamedly and mercilessly, taking the death toll to 39 699 after 308 days of genocide.
Health workers are standing by helplessly. They can’t roll out essential services needed to combat a wave of deadly, transmittable diseases that are festering across Gaza because the Zionists will not allow a pause in the slaughter. At least 91 722 people are wounded and far more than 10 000 missing beneath the rubble of the pulverised enclave.
Malnutrition case among children in northern Gaza have soared almost 300% in July from May, UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) says.
And 96% of Gaza’s population are suffering from crisis levels of hunger while Israeli politicians bewail the fact that the world won’t allow them to starve the entire, 2million Gaza population to death.
With scattered corpses rotting unattended on roadsides, clean water scarce while broken sewers and shattered infrastructure spew filthy sewage onto the streets and families battling to stay clean, disease are spreading while health workers stand by helplessly.
World Health Organization Director, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says the WHO, UNRWA, and UNICEF are preparing “two rounds of polio vaccination campaigns targeting 600,000 children under the age of 8”.
Another 1 million polio vaccines are on their way to Gaza to be “administered in the coming weeks”, he says.
But that requires safe access and after yet another Food Kitchen worker was killed by Israel this week, rescuers are afraid to venture in to Gaza which makes any health initiative like vaccination impossible.
Ghebreyesus asserted the need for “absolute freedom of movement for health workers and medical equipment to carry out these complex operations safely and effectively.”
“A ceasefire, or at least ‘days of tranquility’ during preparation and delivery of the vaccination campaigns, are required to protect children in Gaza from polio,” he added.
The latest incident saw the killing of the World Central Kitchen’s (WCK) Nadi Sallout, one of its Palestinian members, who was killed near Deir al-Balah in Gaza.
Al Mayadeen reports WCK said that Sallout was a “humanitarian at his very core” and an “integral member of [the] warehouse team” from the early days of the organization’s response in Rafah.
Israel also killed seven WCK workers in Gaza in April, leading the organization to pause its operations despite the catastrophic humanitarian situation, only resuming feeding in May.
Two weeks ago, Ghebreyesus said an immediate ceasefire in Gaza is necessary to avoid deaths from unpreventable diseases, given the collapsed state of the Gazan healthcare system.
A week prior, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza warned tests on sewage samples had found the presence of the poliovirus.
Without proper medical treatment, with decaying bodies unattended, food insecurity soaring exponentially and cases of malnutrition flourishing, the spread of highly transmittable diseases, such as respiratory infections, Hepatitis A, and others, such as diarrhoeal diseases is critical.

What do you think?

500 Points
Upvote Downvote

Written by WebAdmin

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings

Loading…

0

09 AUGUST/ 04 SAFAR 1446

Palestine demands ICC arrest Smotrich for Gaza starvation call