Gaza: Bone infections rise with shortage of critical medicine

IMEMC/Agencies 18/10/19

The release of two new reports point to the severity of the Israeli-imposed crisis on the Gaza Strip, with thousands of Palestinian patients — many of whom have been injured by Israeli gunfire, shells and missiles — unable to access much-needed medicines and treatment due to the ongoing Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip. The first report, by Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières), reports a rapid and severe increase of bone infections among injured Palestinians …

In the second report, focused on shortages of essential medicines, Yousef al-Jamal, writing for the Electronic Intifada, states: Israel’s siege – imposed since 2007 – has affected Gaza’s healthcare system enormously. A new report by the World Health Organization states that of the 516 items on Gaza’s essential medicines list, nearly half had less than a month’s stock remaining in 2018. The depletion of stocks had worsened by 15 percent since the previous year, the report adds. Data from 2019 paint a similarly disturbing picture. During August, stocks of 225 essential medicines held in the central store of Gaza’s health ministry had run out by at least 90 percent.