(Observer News)
Israeli media said on the 26th that an Israeli soldier who participated in a ground operation in the Gaza Strip died after being infected with a drug-resistant "dangerous fungus", triggering concerns that the public health crisis in Gaza may spread to Israel. UN agencies have repeatedly warned that Gaza's water and sanitation facilities are not functioning properly due to fuel shortages and that safe water is in desperate short supply, posing a "major health hazard" to local residents, especially women and children.
The Israeli Public Broadcasting Company (KAN) disclosed on the afternoon of the 25th local time that earlier this month, an Israeli soldier fighting in Gaza was sent back to Israel for treatment due to injuries to his limbs. The Israeli newspaper Izvestia said the soldier died two weeks ago from "serious injuries" caused by two different fungal infections, despite consulting with numerous experts and using all available treatments, including experimental protocols imported from overseas.
Israeli media pointed out that in the current round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, at least 10 other Israeli soldiers are being hospitalized due to similar infections. Israeli military medical officials have not yet determined the cause of the soldier's death, but have confirmed isolated cases of similar fungal infections among wounded soldiers returning from Gaza, the report said. Israeli public health experts have warned that they have observed a recent increase in the trend of Israeli soldiers contracting diseases while in Gaza.
On December 21, local time, near the border between Israel and Gaza, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict continued, and Israeli soldiers drove military vehicles. Image source: Oriental IC
According to Israeli health experts, this highly resistant "superbug" is present in the soil of Gaza, and Israeli soldiers have been infected after their wounds come into contact with the contaminated soil. According to Gila Rahav, head of the infectious disease team and laboratory at Israel's Sheba Medical Center, there have been very few similar cases in previous conflicts, but they were all infected by exposure to germs while hospitalized, and this is the first time they have been directly infected on the battlefield.
In the wake of the new conflict, the Gaza Strip has seen a worsening water crisis, deteriorating sanitation conditions and a near-shutdown of water and sewage systems. According to Lahaf, the "dangerous fungus" may have come from soil contaminated with sewage. It is reported that the Israel Society of Infectious Diseases will hold an urgent discussion with epidemiologists from the Israel Defense Forces and the Ministry of Health next week to discuss the issue of infection among troops during the ground operation in Gaza, which will include examining whether the recent infection originated in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip.
The Times of Israel mentioned that in recent days, there have been voices in Israel calling for refusal to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza in order to indulge the spread of the epidemic and make the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) surrender faster, but this "suggestion" has been criticized by many public health experts and doctors. The latter warns that such an idea is not only immoral, but could also endanger Israel itself.
"If the war continues, there will be more and more interaction between soldiers and local communities in the coming weeks and months. Nadav Davidovitch, an epidemiologist and dean of the School of Public Health at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, said, "Disease knows no borders, and we must take this situation seriously." ”
Ronit Calderon-Margalit, director of the Hebrew University School of Public Health and Hadassah Medical Center in Israel, believes that there is a need to closely monitor intestinal infectious diseases such as Shigellosis, dysentery and cholera transmitted by the fecal-oral route, and that the transmission of respiratory diseases is "the most worrying" because they can quickly spread by aerosols or air.
Davidović is also concerned about the potential spread of polio and measles, as children in Gaza are not in a position to receive the relevant vaccines regularly. In his view, there could also be a potential outbreak of the West Nile virus, which infects humans mainly through the bite of a poisonous mosquito. West Nile virus disease affects the central nervous system, and most people infected with West Nile virus have no symptoms, and about 20% can mainly manifest as West Nile fever and West Nile virus encephalitis.
On December 11, local time, in Rafah, Gaza Strip, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict continued, and Palestinians fetched water on the streets. Image source: Visual China
On the 26th, the National Public Radio (NPR) of the United States quoted Rick Brennan, director of emergency affairs for the Eastern Mediterranean region of the World Health Organization, as pointing out that before the outbreak of this round of conflict, despite the blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip, the local health system did a pretty good job in controlling the spread of the disease. The Gaza Strip originally had more than 30 hospitals operating, high vaccination rates and effective disease surveillance. But as a result of repeated Israeli bombardments and ground offensives, Gaza's health infrastructure has collapsed.
WHO data as of 21 December shows that the incidence of infectious diseases in Gaza has skyrocketed. Since mid-October, more than 100,000 cases of diarrhoea have been reported in the Gaza Strip, half of which are in young children under the age of five, 25 times more than before the conflict. More than 150,000 cases of upper respiratory tract infections have been reported in Gaza, with a large number of cases of meningitis, rashes, scabies, lice and chickenpox. WHO suspects a suspected case of hepatitis in Gaza, as many people are showing symptoms of jaundice.
The worsening food, water and sanitation crisis in the Gaza Strip has further weakened the resistance of the people of Gaza to disease. The United Nations World Food Programme said on the 22nd that according to the latest report of the Integrated Classification of Food Security Stages (IPC), all the population of Gaza (about 2.2 million people) is in a state of crisis or severe food insecurity, 26% of Gazans have exhausted food supplies and response capacity, and if the current fierce conflict and restrictions on humanitarian assistance continue, famine will likely occur in the next six months.
Water and sanitation facilities in the Gaza Strip are seriously inadequate. More than 1.9 million people are currently displaced in the Gaza Strip, of whom more than 1.4 million are sheltered, with an average of only one shower room for every 4,500 people and only one toilet for every 220 people. Clean water sources remain scarce, and at present, only 1-3 litres of water per person per day are available in the Gaza Strip, compared with an absolute minimum of 15 litres per person per day. As early as the 4th of this month, Gaza City warned that the streets of its northern areas could be flooded with sewage due to fuel depletion, exacerbating the already deteriorating humanitarian situation.
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