Pedro Ignacio Arcos González
Doctor of Medicine and Doctor of Public Health, specialist in Preventive Medicine and Public Health, professor of Epidemiology and director of the Emergency and Disaster Research Unit at the University of Oviedo, and associate researcher at the University of Oxford (United Kingdom)
The study is highly relevant because child malnutrition in Gaza, due to Israel's blockade on food aid since October 2023, has caused more than half a million people to suffer from famine and an additional 1.14 million to be at a catastrophic level of nutritional insecurity (CIF Phase 4), making this famine in Gaza the most severe currently after that in South Sudan.
The nutritional surveillance study uses comprehensive reliable sources and was conducted in 16 health centers of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees and 78 medical posts in school shelters and tent camps in the five governorates of Gaza, where more than 219,000 children between six and 59 months of age have been examined using mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) as a measurement parameter. This system has been widely used in the field since the late 1950s by numerous organizations such as OXFAM, AICH, WFP, FAO, and Doctors Without Borders, and has been extensively validated by numerous studies, making it the system of choice for rapid emergency nutritional assessment in populations between six and 59 months of age. The study shows the extent and increasing intensity of acute malnutrition levels in recent times in Gaza, and its findings are essential for guiding emergency nutritional intervention programs, especially in supplementary, complementary, and therapeutic nutrition.