Gaza running out of specialised food to save malnourished children
"We are now facing a dire situation, that we are running out of therapeutic supplies," said Salim Oweis, a spokesperson for UNICEF in Amman, Jordan told Reuters on Thursday, saying supplies of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), a crucial treatment, would be depleted by mid-August if nothing changed.
"That's really dangerous for children as they face hunger and malnutrition at the moment," he added.
Oweis said UNICEF had only enough RUTF left to treat 3,000 children. In the first two weeks of July alone, UNICEF treated 5,000 children facing acute malnutrition in Gaza.
"Most malnutrition treatment supplies have been consumed and what is left at facilities will run out very soon if not replenished," a World Health Organization spokesperson said on Thursday.
The WHO said that a programme in Gaza that was aiming to prevent malnutrition among the most vulnerable, including pregnant women and children under five, may have to stop work as it is running out of the nutritional supplements.
As a result, international aid agencies say that only a trickle of what is needed, including medicine, is currently reaching people in Gaza. Reuters
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