Starvation is spreading in Gaza -- and treating it won't be easy - Full article at link [View all]

[cliffside]

Experts warn that famine is unfolding in Gaza — and that treating severe acute malnutrition will take more than just increasing food aid to the enclave.

Full article
https://wapo.st/4otlDrP

".... In the first week or two of treatment, malnourished patients are at a greater risk of refeeding syndrome, in which electrolyte and fluid shifts can lead to serious complications such as seizures, respiratory failure and cardiac arrest, Pooja Yerramilli, an assistant professor and hospitalist at Johns Hopkins University, wrote last year.

.... All four of Gaza’s specialized centers to treat malnutrition are overstretched and running low on fuel, “with supplies expected to run out by mid-August,” the WHO said in an email.

“We’re seeing the shortages on the medical side; we’re seeing it on the nutritional side,” Mohammed Fadlalla, a doctor and the medical activity manager of Gaza’s al-Zawaida Surgical Field Hospital with Doctors Without Borders (MSF), said in an interview this week.

.... The spread of severe malnutrition has wider impacts, too: Children who survive can be left with long-term health problems, while people injured in bombings, explosions or shootings, or infected by diseases, can take much longer to recover — overwhelming the health system further.
“Every one of our patients that we’re operating on has some level of malnourishment, just based on how their body is healing,” Fadlalla said, with wounds taking “much, much longer to heal than they normally should or would” and increased infections...."