DaysofPal – Doctors at Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza are warning of a serious health emergency threatening the lives of thousands of infants, as a severe and ongoing shortage of therapeutic and industrial baby formula coincides with a worrying rise in child malnutrition.
Such a crisis aggravates in the light of the ongoing Israeli siege on Gaza amid the continued genocide.
At the malnutrition clinic in the complex, medical staff say they receive between 90 and 100 children on the two working clinic days each week, on Saturday and Wednesday.
Around 30% are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and about 50% from moderate malnutrition, while the remaining cases show health complications linked to a lack of proper food.
Dr. Ahmad Al-Farra, director of the children’s hospital at Nasser Medical Complex, described the situation as extremely dangerous, pointing to an acute shortage of both basic types of infant formula (Formula 1 and 2), which are intended for babies from birth up to one year of age.
He told Filastin Online that current stocks are very limited and some types are close to running out completely, raising fears of an almost total depletion in the coming period.
Al-Farra stressed that the instability in the availability of specific brands of formula is worsening the crisis, as families are forced to switch products frequently.
This, he said, leads to immediate health problems for infants, including diarrhea, constipation, bloating, poor digestion and allergies, in addition to continuous crying from pain.
Such repeated changes, he warned, may leave long-term effects on children’s digestive systems and increase the likelihood of developing chronic allergies to milk products.
In a related context, Dr. Israa Al-Najjar, head of the nutrition department at Nasser Medical Complex, said many mothers are now relying on formula feeding as a forced choice, due to several factors.
These include poor maternal nutrition, displacement conditions, lack of privacy, and the large number of premature babies who have spent long periods in incubators, hindering their ability to depend on breastfeeding.
Al-Najjar stressed the urgent need to bring in sufficient and stable quantities of therapeutic formula, warning that the worsening malnutrition crisis constitutes a real humanitarian catastrophe.
“These children are not numbers; they are human beings who have the right to life and to healthcare,” she said, calling for immediate action to ensure a sustainable supply of baby formula and protect infants from potentially fatal complications.
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