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Tuesday 11 Aug 2015 - 10:25 Makkah mean time-26-10-1436
(Image from UNRWA )
Gaza city, (IINA) - As Israel’s blockade of Gaza strip enters its 10th year, a United Nations aid agency revealed that neonatal mortality rate in Gaza has risen from 1.2 percent in 2008 to 2.03 percent in 2013, for the first time since 1960.
The infant mortality rate in Gaza has risen for the first time in five decades, according to a study of the United Nation Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The agency's health director said the blockade may be contributing to the trend.
Every five year, UNRWA conducts a survey of infant mortality across the region, and the 2013 results were released this week.
The number of babies dying before the age of one has consistently gone down over the last decades in Gaza, from 127 per 1,000 live births in 1960 to 20.2 in 2008. At the last count, in 2013, it had risen to 22.4 per 1,000 live births.
The rate of neonatal mortality, which is the number of babies that die before four weeks old, has also gone up significantly in Gaza, from 12 per 1,000 live births in 2008 to 20.3 in 2013.
“Infant mortality is one of the best indicators for the health of the community,” said Dr. Akihiro Seita, director of UNRWA’s health program. “It reflects on the mother and child’s health and in the U.N. millennium development goals it is one of the key indicators.”
“The rate”, Dr. Seita said, “had declined quite smoothly over the last decades across the region, including Gaza. So when the 2013 results from Gaza were first uncovered, UNRWA was alarmed by the apparent increase. So we worked with external independent research groups to examine the data, to ensure the increase could be confirmed. That is why it took us so long to release these latest figures“.
Such an increase here is unprecedented in Dr. Seita’s experience working in the Middle East. “Progress in combatting infant mortality doesn’t usually reverse. This seems to be the first time we have seen an increase like this,” Dr. Seita noted. “The only other examples I can think of are in some African countries which experienced HIV epidemics”.
We are very concerned about the impact of the long-term blockade on health facilities, supplies of medicines and brining equipment in to Gaza,” Dr. Seita said.
The UNRWA report also highlights that the most recent survey was conducted before last year’s conflict in which over two thousand Palestinians were killed, the majority of whom were civilians, including over 550 children.
It is worth mentioning that last year, Israel launched a relentless airstrikes against Gaza from July 8 to August 26, leaving more than 2,100 killed and thousands injured. According to UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), about 80 percent of deaths in Gaza were civilians, including dozens of children and women.
SM/IINA
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