Limiting dissemination of COVID-19 in Gaza Strip

This intervention came on a time of an urgent need to intervene to confront the spread of COVID-19 among the Palestinian community in Gaza strip especially speaking after the transmission of COVID19 among the Palestinian community outside the quarantine centers and the rising numbers of the infected persons especially during November and December 2020.

According to MoH Statistics, 51670 infected persons with COVID-19 was reported during 6 March 2020 up to 2 Feb 2021, among them 523 deaths.

During the transmission of COVID-19, UHWC as leading Non-Governmental health organization triggered the emergency state inside our premises and facilities. We applied a closed working system inside Al Awda hospital, where our teams worked for 10 continuous days for the reason of protecting the environment at the hospital, visiting patients and the staff inside the hospital and their families when they go back home after finishing the 10 working days. 

As soon as the virus was transmitted among the community, the lockdown was imposed and all health centers were closed until mid Sep. 2020. The life started to partially came back to normal. On 5 Dec. 2020, the local government announced the lockdown in Fridays and Saturdays, and this doubled the work at Al Awda Hospital.

intervention, contributed to promoting the protection of the medical team and workers of Al Awda Hospital who were dealing directly with the beneficiaries, in addition to protecting patients who were visiting the hospital through the provision of personal protection equipment and disinfectors. Moreover, the project worked to increase the protection of the local community by providing hygiene kits to nearly 236 poor and marginalized families, mainly women, elderly and people with disabilities.

Up to the reporting period, the supplied disposables and PPE's served nearly 10,458 beneficiaries who came to the hospital seeking for Emergency services, Maternity services, surgical operations services and outpatient clinic services.

One of UHWC employees who benefited from this fund was Kh. H. she is a midwife working at our maternity ward, she is living with her husband and mother–in-law in a rental house. Due to COVID-19 her husband lost his job.

First Story:

KH. H. is a midwife helping women to get birth at the maternity ward and always supports them during giving birth.

Having tested positive to IgG/IgM helped us to early detect the case. UHWC sent KH. H. to quarantine and was given an isolation kit due to her difficult economic situation.

She said "Thanks god I have been early detected because I was not developing any symptoms, I was a fried to transmit the virus to my mother-in-law, she is an elderly woman and sge might get ill"

She was one of the beneficiaries from the project " Limiting dissemination of COVID-19 in Gaza Strip " that was funded by GlobalGiving, who benefited from the PPE that have been brought and distributed to protect our teams and to maintain the provision of health services.

The second story:

Dr. S.G is a gynecologist living in Gaza city, he is one of the qualified surgeon working at Al Awda Hospital, and he used to conduct tens of Cesarean Section operations monthly and other Gyn. and Obs. surgical operations and supervise normal delivery cases.

UHWC set a triage point at the entrance of the hospital. Nobody allowed entering the hospital before being checked. All teams working at Al Awda hospital, and patients are asked many questions related to covid 19, besides measuring the body temperature and sanitizing them with alcohol gel and water with chloride concentration, and any suspicious cases was asked to do the IgG/IgM tests at our lab, but mandatory to be done for all the staff.

S.G was coming to his work in the morning when he was asked to do the IgG/IgM test as prevention measure. The result was positive and then according to MoH protocol, he was asked to do PCR test to make sure if he test positive for COVID-19 or not.

Having the PCR test positive, later S.G was sent to the Turkish Hospital for quarantine according to MoH protocols in dealing with the COVID-19 confirmed cases.

S.G says, "I don’t know I'm one of the confirmed cases of COVID-19, until I had done the IgG/IgM test. This test gives indication of your possibility of being confirmed with coronavirus. Thanks god that I was detected early before starting the work at the hospital and the maternity ward. It would be catastrophic if I were not detected on time. By this, I did not only stop transmitting the virus to the hospital and patients, but also I protected my family and my social circle. Being asymptomatic, none of corona virus symptoms showed up. That is why the triage point at the hospital is very important, because it catches up asymptomatic cases by the IgG/IgM test.

Al Awda Hospital Director A. M. says, "S.G was detected before starting his work at the hospital. It is of our pleasure that he did not start up working. Thanks to Rebuilding Alliance and Welfare Association for making the IgG/IgM tests available to the hospital. Without this, we were not able to catch the asymptomatic cases. We protected our hospital, our staff and were able to proceed in the provision of emergency- lifesaving services to the population, in light of the closure of MoH and UNRWA clinics due to the transmission of coronavirus outside the quarantine centers in 25^th Aug. 2020"  

Without this intervention, Al Awda Hospital would not be able to intervene to protect its environment, its patient and its working staff, and is now able to contribute to limit the spread of Corona virus in Gaza Strip. This fund also strengthened the health system and increased its capacity to respond to the health needs of facing Corona virus.

In addition, targeting poor families in marginalized areas, especially patients, elderly and PWD reduced their infection with Corona virus and having good health and well-being.