'All these rashes': chickenpox surges in Gaza camps
UNICEF said health officials recorded more than 9,300 suspected cases as overcrowding and scarce water make isolation and hygiene difficult.
- UNICEF reported more than 9,300 suspected chickenpox cases across Gaza in early July, with infections concentrated mainly in Khan Yunis in the south.
- Overcrowding in tents and infrequent access to clean water fuel the outbreak. Alaa, sister of eight-year-old Ruba Saadeh, blamed the spread on "overcrowding in the tents, and the fact that we only get water once a week, and it's salty and not clean."
- Dermatologist Raed Abdel Karim Abu Sariya of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that a lack of space to isolate patients is fuelling the spread. Separating the sick from the healthy is virtually impossible in Gaza's camps.
- Louise Wateridge, a UNICEF spokesperson, warned that medical supplies remain grossly inadequate. She stated, "There has to be space for people to live and not to be sleeping on the floor, not to be sleeping among these rodents."
- Beyond chickenpox, more than half of households report skin diseases, fleas, lice, and scabies. Medics emphasize that preventing infection remains as difficult as treating it, with increasing numbers of children requiring hospitalization while Gaza's health system nears collapse.
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Saudi Gazette
AlKhaleej TodayChickenpox surge compounds health crisis in overcowded Gaza camps
A chickenpox outbreak has emerged as one of the latest consequences of Israel's systematic attacks on Gaza's infrastructure and obstruction of healthcare and hygiene supplies delivery.
‘All these rashes’: chickenpox surges in Gaza camps
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Eight-year-old Ruba Saadeh spends her days confined to the tent she shares with her family in Gaza, her body dotted with inflamed red blisters as chickenpox sweeps through overcrowded camps like the one they live in. Doctors and displaced families in Gaza say the highly contagious disease has surged in recent months as war has forced
'All these rashes': chickenpox surges in Gaza camps
Doctors and displaced families in Gaza say the highly contagious disease has surged in recent months as war has forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into cramped tent camps with no clean water for hygiene. "The doctor told us she needs daily cleaning and should be isolated for 20 days," Ruba's 19-year-old sister Alaa told AFP. "But how can we isolate her? We all live in one tent." UNICEF said health officials had already recorded more th…
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