If children are withdrawn sufficient food, a cascade of health errors can quickly follow. Threaten critical diseases and death, and even those who survive can have health challenges for a lifetime.
The young Palestinians, especially those under the age of 5, are particularly susceptible to the Gaza Strip, where Israel has limited the entry of help throughout the war, the intersections completely conclude. The highest malnutrition since the beginning of the war has been reported this summer, and its largest city was officially explained by a group of experts in food safety.
Food and other critical supplies dripped back into Gaza Strip in May after a 11-week blockade imposed by Israel. It wasn’t enough. In July, according to the integrated classification of the nutritional security phase, food consumption reached a lowest point since the beginning of the war. Monitor world hunger.
Since then, more help has gone to the Gaza. However, the food shortages are still widespread, and for some of the most endangered Gazans, the damage may already have been done.
When children are severely malnourished, their bodies rely on reserves to lead a last fight for survival. Finally, their organs begin to collapse.
Sometimes they become skeletal table. In other cases they swell. You can be sluggish and stop eating to the point of immobility, even if there is food because the food of energy you don’t have takes. If your defense systems begin to fail, you can suddenly die from frequent diseases that a healthier child could withstand.
This happens with a malnourished body.
If children have acute malnutrition, most regular foods will not reverse the process.
The World Health Organization recommends that acute malnourished children feed energy density food such as nut butter and sweet potatoes, and sometimes they can be found locally.
But they are not always available in Gaza, where markets and farms were destroyed. Children there need a specially formulated therapeutic food: a stored milk for very small children or a peanut -based product packed with calories, vitamins and nutrients. The WHO also recommends a broadband antibiotic to treat infections.
The most severe malnourished children have to be treated in a hospital, also because they have no appetite and try their bodies to save energy. These children are fed with specially formulated milk, often over a nasal gas tube.
Sharif Matar, a pediatrician at Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital in the north of Gaza, said that the doctors fought to cope with a lack of this enriched milk. While more than a month ago, health workers are still rationed to ensure that the hardest cases are enough enough, he said in an interview at the end of August.
“We try to do our best what we can do,” said Dr. Matar. “But with regard to the quality or quantity of what is available, it is not enough.”
Throughout the war, Israeli officials played the severity of hunger in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office called The most recent explanation of Gaza City’s famine “a complete lie” and said that the experts behind the famine report had overlooked the Israeli efforts since the end of July to bring more food into the area.
Auxiliary officials, however, say that these measures behind what is needed. In the first two weeks of August, the UN announced that almost 6,000 children were found by more than 58,000 malnutrition examined.
Gaza’s doctors are not used to treating such acute malnutrition, said Dr. Matar, since the enclave has never been so heavily exposed to a crisis. Some clinicians in his hospital took part from the WHO classes, while others tried to read everything they could, how to treat it, he said.
Health officers in Gaza say that dozens of children have died under malnutrition since June, but it is not clear how many of them suffered from both malnutrition as well as other diseases or existing conditions. Children who suffer from malnutrition can be more susceptible to processing other diseases, and children with existing conditions can be more susceptible to malnutrition, say experts.
Some of the children who treat themselves have recovered, including a critically ill 5-year-old girl who was saved with therapeutic milk, said Dr. Matar.
For a child, food is not just energy for the upcoming day. It is the main building block for a life that is required to develop muscles, bones and brain.
Even if children who have severe malnutrition maintain and survive effective treatment, they can suffer from stunted growth, soft bones, liver and kidney problems and cognitive problems. In the long term, there can be an increased risk of stroke, diabetes and heart disease.
In view of the widespread lack of food in Gaza, the treatment of a single child can sometimes feel Sisyphean, said Jamil Suleiman, the director of the Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital. Some have been released from care to tent camps in which their parents still have difficulty finding enough food, said Dr. Suleiman.
“Some of the children we release come back a week later with the same problems,” he said.
