WHO / GAZA MALNUTRITION
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STORY: WHO / GAZA MALNUTRITION
TRT: 04:01
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT WHO ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ARABIC / NATS
DATELINE: 29 FEBRUARY 2024, KAMAL ADWAN HOSPITAL, NORTH GAZA
1. Various shots, babies in incubators, health worker feeding a tube into a baby’s nose as power goes off
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Dr Imad Dardonah, Paediatrician, Kamal Adwan Hospital:
“Yes, malnutrition plays a major role in the number of children that come to us, and thus the number of deaths happening. When a child is supposed to eat three meals a day and ends up eating one meal, that’s not enough for him; your body becomes deficient in carbohydrates, vitamins, proteins, and deficient in fats that are necessary for the body. Then the body goes into a severe dehydration state. I can frankly say that we can’t even deal properly with 50-60 percent of the cases we receive, because we have nothing to give them, the most we can do for them is either give them saline solution or sugar solution.”
3. Various shots, baby with pink towel
4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Dr Imad Dardonah, Paediatrician, Kamal Adwan Hospital:
“And of course, all of this is happening due to the lack of food. When the child is supposed to eat three meals a day and he only eats one, he is certainly ending up with malnutrition, and all the diseases that come because of it. And if the rate of infection goes up, he might get lung infection or blood infection. Let’s also talk about hepatitis disease that’s spreading widely in the country now, and that’s also due to the lack of food. “
5. Various shots, babies in incubators, health workers
6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Dr Imad Dardonah, Paediatrician, Kamal Adwan Hospital:
“We received a case from Al-Sahaba medical complex that needed a device that we barely managed to get, she also needed an incubator, but we couldn’t manage to get that, so we had to put her with another child. She also needs a monitoring device for her heart and lungs, and we also are barely managing to get her that. And this case basically took everything we have, if another case comes in, that requires the same devices; we won’t be able to do anything for them. The devices we have are not working as you saw yourself. We are now in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) but the situation is the same with the intensive care department.”
7. Various shots, babies in incubators
8. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Dr Imad Dardonah, Paediatrician, Kamal Adwan Hospital:
“My message is to appeal to the entire world to intervene and save all the children, to bring medical aid, and fuel to the hospitals, and to help bring back all the medical staff that had to leave the hospital to the south. The war must stop immediately.”
9. Various shots, babies in incubators, health workers as the power goes out again
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that a steep rise in malnutrition among children and pregnant and breastfeeding women in the Gaza strip poses grave threats to their health.
The report “Nutrition Vulnerability and Situation Analysis - Gaza” – finds that the situation is particularly extreme in the Northern Gaza Strip.
Nutrition screenings conducted at shelters and health centers in January in the north found that 15.6 percent – or 1 in 6 children under 2 years of age – are acutely malnourished.
Of these, almost 3 percent suffer from severe wasting, the most life-threatening form of malnutrition.
Before the hostilities, wasting in the Gaza Strip was rare with just 0.8 percent of children under 5 years of age acutely malnourished.
The rate of 15.6 percent of wasting among children under 2 in Northern Gaza suggests a serious and rapid decline.
Such a decline in a population’s nutritional status in three months is unprecedented globally.