A World Health Organization official in Beirut warned on Tuesday of the risk of disease spreading in Lebanon due to overcrowded conditions in refugee shelters and the closure of hospitals as medics fled the Israeli attack.
Israeli forces have begun ground operations in southwestern Lebanon, escalating the year-long conflict with Hezbollah, which has killed more than a thousand people in the past two weeks and sparked mass escapes.
“We are facing a situation in which the possibility of outbreaks of diseases, such as acute watery diarrhea, hepatitis A, and a number of diseases that can be prevented by vaccines,” Ian Clark, a World Health Organization official in Lebanon, said at a press conference in Geneva via video link from Beirut.
Clark added that the United Nations Health Organization has already warned that the system is overburdened and that so far there are 5 hospitals in Lebanon that are out of service and 4 other hospitals are operating inefficiently as a result of the hostilities.
He said hospitals were closed because medics either fled the fighting or were asked to evacuate by authorities.
At the same conference, a World Food Program official on Tuesday expressed concern about Lebanon’s ability to provide its own food, and said that thousands of acres of agricultural land in the south of the country had been burned or abandoned amid the escalation of hostilities.
“In terms of agriculture and food production, there is extraordinary concern about Lebanon’s ability to continue to feed itself,” said Matthew Hollingsworth, director of the World Food Program in Lebanon, adding that crops would not be harvested and mold would hit production in the fields.