The UN reported on Thursday that of the nearly 47, 000 under-fives who had been screened for malnutrition in the second half of May, 5.8% (or 2, 733 children) were found to be suffering from acute malnutrition, “almost triple the proportion of children diagnosed with malnutrition” three months earlier.
According to a report released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the number of children with severe acute malnutrition who needed hospital admission also increased by roughly a tenfold in May compared to earlier months.
More than 16, 500 children under the age of five have been identified and treated for severe acute malnutrition in Gaza since January, including 141 children with complications that call for hospitalization, according to data from the OCHA-cited Nutrition Cluster.
According to the OCHA report, “there are currently only four stabilization centers for the treatment of]severe acute malnutrition] with medical complications in the Gaza Strip.
According to the statement, “Children in these areas have been forced to stop receiving lifesaving care at stabilization centers in North Gaza and Rafah,” it continues.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the Gaza enclave’s “health system is collapsing” in response to the UN’s most recent warning regarding the health of young children in Gaza.
The WHO called on the “most important referral hospital in Gaza” and Al-Amal Hospital to be put under “urgent protection” in an appeal for the “urgent protection” of two of Gaza’s last remaining hospitals.
“The hospitals in Gaza have been systematically and relentlessly destroyed for too long.” The WHO stated in a statement that it must end right away.
The Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital should be immediately protected, according to WHO, to make sure they are still accessible, safe, and protected from attacks and hostilities.
“Patients seeking refuge and care in order to save their lives must not run the risk of losing them in the hospital.”
UN experts, medical professionals in Gaza, and medical organizations have long accused Israeli forces of purposefully harming Gaza’s health workers and medical facilities in what has been described as a deliberate attempt to make the Palestinian population’s lives in the Strip.
WHO calls for the Gaza Strip’s Nasser Medical Complex and Al-Amal Hospital to be immediately protected.
WHO issues a warning that Al-Amal Hospital, the most significant referral hospital in Gaza, and Nasser Medical Complex, which are both at risk of disintegrating, are collapsing. twitter.com/Rd3ZjASuBp
Source: Aljazeera
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