In Gaza, the World Health Organization warns that illness may ultimately kill more people than Israel’s offensive. Infectious diseases are “soaring,” says the WHO. Over 100,000 cases of diarrhea have been reported, with rates among children 25 times higher than before the war.
War has shattered Gaza’s health-care system, including its disease surveillance capabilities. So global health groups and health professionals are doing what they can to spot and prevent outbreaks in an increasingly desperate situation.
“It’s our way of detecting the emergence of diseases that can result in an epidemic very, very, very quickly,” says Rick Brennan, the WHO’s Regional Emergency Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Region.
Before the war, despite the Israeli blockade, humanitarian groups say Gaza’s public health system was doing a pretty good job. The 2 million-plus Palestinians living there had solid vaccination rates, access to three dozen hospitals and effective disease surveillance.
“There was a reasonably good system to detect disease outbreaks,” says Brennan, “to pick up cases of infectious diseases, to transfer the specimens to test them in the laboratories, and then implement control measures.”
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/12/26/1221414237/gaza-infectious-disease-outbreak-public-health-israel-palestineContinue reading