The eleven days of clashes between Hamas and the Israeli army notably destroyed the only public screening center in the Palestinian enclave. LThe head of the Covid unit of the largest hospital has been killed.
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Posted the 05/24/2021 06:14
Update the 05/24/2021 06:19 AM
Reading time : 1 min.
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In Gaza the already precarious humanitarian situation has been worsened by 11 days of war between Hamas and the Israeli army. Vital public services have been damaged: water sanitation, schools, access to energy and health services. The inhabitants of the Palestinian enclave find themselves even more fragile in the face of the Covid-19 epidemic.
Doctor Abdullatif Al Haj holds up a small box written in Russian: “It’s the Spountnik vaccine given to the people here but now it’s unusable.” We are at the Hala Shawa clinic, one of the main vaccination centers in the northern Gaza Strip, blown away by a strike nearby. “The center is completely demolished, we must remove all the pieces of the bombed building. There is no reason in the world to attack a humanitarian center like this!”, the doctor despairs.
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Similar scenes in central Gaza City. The Ministry of Health and Al Rimal Clinic are also damaged. It was the only public laboratory that performed Covid-19 tests. Humanitarian workers have developed small laboratories for screening but Tatiana Chiarella, from Médecin Sans Frontières fears a resumption of the epidemic: “It’s complicated with the war situation. We’ve all forgotten the virus but it’s still there. Unfortunately it’s worse.”
Terrible symbol, the head of the COVID unit of Gaza’s largest hospital was killed along with the majority of his family in a bombing raid. Dr Bassel Al Ayla was one of his colleagues: “Doctor Ayman Abou Hof was not just a doctor, he was also like a father. We are talking about a very few experts in Gaza. The health system here suffers from a limited number of specialists so when you face a very dangerous and very severe disease like Covid-19 and you lose one of the most experienced and talented doctors, it really is a very serious loss. . “
In Gaza, the population is very young, so theoretically less exposed. But stressed young people who are not always well fed or cared for are also weak patients.
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