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Gaza aid delay causes chronic shortage of medical supplies, WHO says
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<span class="field field-title">Gaza aid delay causes chronic shortage of medical supplies, WHO says </span>
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<div class="field field-field-text"><p>Getting humanitarian aid through Israel into Gaza is layered with "delay after delay", the World Health Organisation said Friday, as it decried "chronic shortages" of medical supplies.</p>
<p>Reinhilde Van de Weerdt, the WHO's representative in the Palestinian territories, said the health situation in the Gaza Strip "remains utterly dire", with none of its hospitals fully functional.</p>
<p>"Not enough humanitarian aid is entering Gaza, and definitely not enough to allow for a meaningful expansion and restoration of health services," she told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Jerusalem.</p>
<p>She said Israel's approval system for medical and other humanitarian supplies was proving a major bottleneck.</p>
<p>"It is laborious, time-consuming, with no guaranteed results," she said.</p>
<p>Based on the WHO's latest analysis, large volumes of medical supplies wait for clearance for a median of 74 days, said Van de Weerdt, adding that if it is not, "than we start that lengthy, cumbersome process all over again".</p>
<p>She added that the approval system kept changing, with new regulations introduced.</p>
<p>Van de Weerdt said standard health kits used worldwide had the lowest approval rate, while X-ray machines, sterilisation equipment and spare parts for CT scans and other essential machinery "get rejected regularly".</p>
<p>"In just the last six months alone, one shipment of prosthetics and assistive devices was rejected four separate times," she said.</p>
<p>However, medicines move "relatively well", with almost 87 percent approved and one percent rejected, she added.</p>
<p>"It's not one single blockage. It's a system, layered with delay after delay... and on the other side of every one of these delays is a patient who is waiting," she said.</p>
<p>"We need the unimpeded and predicable entry of humanitarian and health supplies into Gaza, at scale.</p>
<p><em>Report by AFP</em></p>
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