That moment of happiness Fitzpatrick realized that the malnutrition crisis in Gaza had advanced to a newer, more deadly stage, when surgeons at the hospital that was still operating on striptease reported that the wounds were no longer closed.
“There are too many traumatic injuries, such as explosion injuries and fractures,” said Fitzpatrick, assistant professor at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition. “But they don’t have the nutrients to build the collagen needed to shut them down. So the wounds that are a month or even two months old still look as fresh as they did last week.”
According to the Ministry of Health, which operates in Hamas, Gaza, malnutrition deaths have reached 154 since October 2023, with 89 deaths in children. The World Health Organization reported this week that there was a special surge in deaths in July, with 63 deaths related to malnutrition reported in health care facilities, including 38 adults, one more than five children and less than 24 children. Most of these patients were declared dead on arrival.
The scope of this crisis has been conveyed to the viewing world through photos of babies with sparse hair and babies. Fitzpatrick, who studies hunger and its biological role, explained that in extremely scarce conditions, the body has a built-in priority system designed to preserve the most important organs, heart and brain until the end. Using its primary fuel supply (glycogen stored in the liver and muscles), she says the body uses fat for energy before degrading bones, muscles, and then when necessary, fat, such as the liver, for example, to extract protein. “Skin and hair are the first to be ignored,” Fitzpatrick said. “The hair falls off. A lot of the time it changes color. The skin becomes very thin.”
In some cases, severe protein deficiency can lead to a disease called Schwarshkoor or famine edema, characterized by fluid migration into human tissue, especially in the abdomen. “There are different types of acute malnutrition,” Fitzpatrick said. “There are getting thinner and thinner people, there are the Quavalcoles people, we all see in Gaza. But no, that’s smooth.”
Much of our understanding of acute malnutrition comes from the study conducted by survivors of the Holocaust, namely the major famines of the 20th century, such as the Great Famine in China and the Ethiopian famine in the 1980s, and anorexia. Marko Kerac, associate professor of global child health and nutrition at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, describes the body as a gradual decrease in process, at some point in time people are malnourished but still remain medically stable and then enter a more severe phase characterized by loss of appetite, lethargy and Athargy and Athargy or anxiety.
According to the latest report from Gaza, Kerac said that one in five children under the age of five describes one in five children, and he said more and more people are entering the post-stage. Statistics collected by NGOs The global nutrition cluster has shown a series of cases since early June. This month, more than 5,000 people have been sent to four malnutrition treatment centers in Gaza, and 6,500 people have been sent to four malnutrition treatment centers in Gaza. “The youngest children are more vulnerable because their organs are still developing,” Kerac said.
