JERUSALEM – Recent airstrikes from the Israeli Army on Palestine ravaged the only laboratory in charge of carrying out tests to detect the novel coronavirus.
The sole Covid-19 laboratory to tests oppressed Palestinians is no longer able to operate after an Israeli airstrike on the clinic partially wrecked the premises.
The recent attacks have also damaged the administrative offices of the Health Ministry besides injuring the health personnel.
The Director of the ministry’s preventive medicine department, Dr. Majdi Dhair, while speaking with international media said that one ministry employee is in critical condition after shrapnel struck him in the head. In the meantime, health officials have also stopped administering Covid-19 PCR tests.
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The damaged laboratory will also not be able to process other tests related to Hepatitis, H.I.V., and other conditions.
Health ministry spokesman Ashraf Qidra, while lamenting at situation said that Israel’s strikes threaten to undermine the efforts of the health ministry in the face of the Covid pandemic.
According to a report of the World Health Organisation, the recent bombardment from Israeli forces has damaged at least 18 medical facilities in Gaza and it comes at the time when the oppressed Palestinians faced one of the world’s highest positive coronavirus test rates.
United Nations and WHO officials also alarmed that a surge in new COVID infections is expected in Gaza due to civilians having to cram into shelters to avoid deadly airstrikes.
As per the latest figures from the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 219 Palestinians including 63 children and 36 women, have been killed so far while 1,530 people have been wounded.
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