Chickenpox cases rise in overcrowded Gaza camps

Doctors and displaced families in Gaza say chickenpox has surged in recent months as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been forced by war into crowded tent camps with little clean water for hygiene.

Eight-year-old Ruba Saadeh is staying inside the tent she shares with her family, with inflamed red blisters across her body. Her 19-year-old sister Alaa said a doctor told the family that Ruba needed daily cleaning and should be isolated for 20 days, but said isolation was impossible because the family lives in one tent.

UNICEF said health officials had recorded more than 9,300 suspected chickenpox cases across Gaza by early July, mainly in Khan Yunis in the south. UNICEF spokeswoman Louise Wateridge said Khan Yunis was the most densely populated area in the Gaza Strip, with families sheltering extremely close together.

Raed Abdel Karim Abu Sariya, a dermatologist with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, said a lack of space to isolate patients was helping the disease spread. He said chickenpox patients should be isolated because the disease spreads through respiratory infection, but that separation is virtually impossible in camps where 10, 15 or 20 people may live in a small tent.

AFP footage from Gaza City showed stagnant dirty water and garbage around makeshift shelters, with children walking barefoot between tent rows. Outside a Palestinian Red Crescent medical centre, patients waited for treatment as Abu Sariya examined children with rashes.

Alaa said overcrowding, limited water supplies and dirty, salty water were contributing to the illness. She said the family receives water once a week and struggles to buy basic cleaning supplies because her father is unemployed after years of war.

Ruba said she used to shower every day, but now there is no soap, shampoo or detergent. She said she lives in a tent and cannot sleep because of rats.

Medical workers say the outbreak shows the wider public health problems facing Gaza's displaced population, where preventing infection has become as difficult as treating it. International aid organisations have repeatedly warned that medical supplies are severely inadequate.

Wateridge said chickenpox was only one part of the health crisis, alongside respiratory infections, watery diarrhoea, skin diseases, fleas, lice and scabies. She said more than half of households were reporting skin diseases, and that more children needed hospital care while Gaza's health system was close to collapse.

Gaza's health care system has been badly damaged during the two-year war between Israeli forces and Hamas. Israel has targeted medical facilities it accuses of sheltering militants.

Wateridge said diseases such as chickenpox would not go away unless the causes of the situation were addressed. She called for more medicine to be allowed into Gaza and said people needed space to live without sleeping on floors or among rodents.