SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
Israeli strike puts sole Gaza Covid lab out of action: ministry
Gaza City, Palestinian Territories, May 17 (AFP) May 17, 2021
The Palestinian enclave of Gaza's only Covid-19 laboratory is no longer able to carry out testing due to an Israeli air strike Monday on the clinic housing it, local authorities said.

Al-Rimal clinic, in the town of the same name in the Gaza Strip, was partly destroyed, while the territory's health ministry and the office of Qatar's Red Crescent were also hit, officials said.

Medical personnel at the ministry were wounded, some critically, the Hamas-run enclave's deputy health minister Yousef Abu al-Rish told reporters.

Ministry spokesman Ashraf Qidra said the Israeli strikes "threaten to undermine the efforts of the health ministry in the face of the Covid pandemic".

The raids "stopped screening tests... at the central laboratory", he added.

Before the military escalation between Hamas and Israel a week ago, authorities in Gaza tested an average of some 1,600 people per day.

The rate of positive tests was among the highest in the world, at 28 percent, and hospitals have been overwhelmed by patients.

The enclave of two million residents has so far received 122,000 vaccine doses, more than half of which have not been administered, according to the World Health Organization.

WHO says 103,000 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Gaza, of whom over 930 have died.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Voyager raises over 400 million in public debut to fuel growth and innovation
Kinetica 2 engine test hits milestone with successful multi-engine trial
Conservation leaders join passenger lineup for Blue Origin NS-33 suborbital launch

24/7 Energy News Coverage
AI-enabled control system helps autonomous drones stay on target in uncertain environments
Decarbonizing steel is as tough as steel
Molecular relay structure enables faster photon upconversion for solar and medical use

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
World faces new arms race as nuclear powers spend 100B a year
Australia says China anxiety, geography driving closer Indonesia ties
Iran's nuclear programme, Netanyahu's age-old obsession

24/7 News Coverage
Ancient climate shifts reveal warning signs for modern drought risks
Space lasers, AI used by geospatial scientist to measure forest biomass
Tiny organisms, huge implications for people



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.