WHO Warns of Possible Lebanon Disease Outbreaks as Hospitals Shut

 Displaced people are gathered near a park in the center of the city where they found shelter, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 8, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced people are gathered near a park in the center of the city where they found shelter, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 8, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Warns of Possible Lebanon Disease Outbreaks as Hospitals Shut

 Displaced people are gathered near a park in the center of the city where they found shelter, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 8, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced people are gathered near a park in the center of the city where they found shelter, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 8, 2024. (Reuters)

A World Health Organization official warned on Tuesday of disease outbreaks in Lebanon due to crowded conditions in displacement shelters and hospital closures as medics have fled Israel's assault.

Israeli forces have begun ground operations in the southwest of Lebanon, escalating a year-long conflict with Iran-backed group Hezbollah that has killed over 1,000 people in the past two weeks and triggered a mass flight.

"We are facing a situation where there is a much higher risk of disease outbreaks, such as acute watery diarrhea, hepatitis A, and a number of vaccine preventable diseases," the WHO's Ian Clarke, Deputy Incident Manager for Lebanon, told a Geneva press briefing by video link from Beirut.

The UN health agency has already warned that the system is overstretched and so far five hospitals in the country have closed and four are only partly functional, Clarke said.

He added that hospitals had been shut because medics had either fled the fighting or been asked to evacuate by Lebanese authorities.

At the same briefing, a World Food Program official voiced concern about Lebanon's ability to feed itself, saying thousands of hectares of farmland across the country's south have burned or been abandoned amid escalating hostilities.

"Agriculture-wise, food production-wise, (there is) extraordinary concern for Lebanon's ability to continue to feed itself," Matthew Hollingworth, WFP country director in Lebanon, said, adding that harvests will not occur and that produce is rotting in fields. 



Siga Technologies to Supply Mpox Therapy in Morocco

The Mohammed VI Tower in Rabat. (AFP)
The Mohammed VI Tower in Rabat. (AFP)
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Siga Technologies to Supply Mpox Therapy in Morocco

The Mohammed VI Tower in Rabat. (AFP)
The Mohammed VI Tower in Rabat. (AFP)

Drugmaker Siga Technologies said on Tuesday it would supply its therapy for mpox in Morocco as part of a contract in response to a request from the country's health ministry for protection against any potential outbreak of the disease.

Although the antiviral therapy Tpoxx has been available in Africa through clinical trials and the World Health Organization's emergency use access protocol to deal with the current outbreak of mpox virus, this agreement marks Siga's first commercial sale of the therapy on the continent, Reuters reported.

The therapy is approved in the US and Canada for the treatment of smallpox and authorized in Europe and the UK for smallpox, mpox, cowpox and complications from vaccinia virus.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention stated last month that the outbreak is not under control, after the WHO declared it a public health emergency of international concern in August upon identifying the new variant.

Two cases of the disease have been confirmed in Morocco this year, according to the WHO.