Dr Mohammad Abu Tayyem, a paediatrician at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, said that based on the number of babies already in intensive care, he expects that more children will be admitted to the hospital emergency departments seeking treatment for hypothermia, Al Jazeera reports.
As cold weather hits Gaza, Abu Tayyem said hypothermia will affect more children due to the number of babies being born prematurely in the war zone and those born with low birth weight.
“All the small babies — the premature babies and the low-birth-weight babies – are more vulnerable to hypothermia,” he said, telling of how three children, who had no history of chronic illness, were brought dead to the emergency room at the hospital.
“They just came with low body temperature [without] any history of medical complications,” he said.
At least seven infants have died of hypothermia so far in Gaza and aid groups are warning of the urgent need for adequate shelter in the territory, access to blankets and warm clothes as well as food and medicine, supplies of which have all been blocked by Israel’s siege of the territory.
