Aid convoy reaches Douma amid infectious diseases spread

Aid convoy reaches Douma amid infectious diseases spread
A convoy carrying medical aid on Saturday entered the besieged opposition-controlled Douma in Damascus eastern countryside, the Red Crescent said.

The aid consists of medicines and also milk for children, said Syrian Red Crescent director of operations Hazem Bakla, AFP reported.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) confirmed the aid delivery to Douma in the Eastern Ghouta, Al-Arabiya TV reported.

According to UN figures, some 486,700 people in Syria currently live in besieged areas.

Scores are reported to have died of malnutrition or because of a lack of medical treatment.

Activists in the besieged Damascus eastern countryside warned that children there are facing a new wave of illness brought on by the lack of proper vaccination.

Polio, smallpox, measles, whooping cough, and other highly contagious diseases risk re-emergence in Damascus eastern countryside, potentially causing an epidemic.

"The prevention of the vaccines from reaching the area is just another weapon of war by the regime to increase pressure on the besieged area," Mahmoud al-Sheikh, the administrative director of URMBEG, told Al Jazeera.

On February 3, a joint statement was issued by URMBEG and the interim government’s Health Directorate of Damascus and Rural Damascus on the critical scenarios of missed childhood vaccines, shedding light on the rising plight threatening to grow into a large scale epidemic of what were once preventable diseases.

According to Ward Mardini, a local journalist in the besieged areas, the Syrian regime ministry of health and WHO are the only bodies authorised to receive and allocate the vaccinations.

"The transfer of these vaccinations into the besieged areas of the Ghouta are strictly limited to internationally-recognised bodies, which in this case would be the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), operated by the regime," Mardini told Al Jazeera.

But despite this, there have been consistent restrictions and difficulties preventing these convoys from reaching the besieged area. Sheikh adds that the last convoy to gain access to the Ghouta area was on July 23, 2015, where doses were received by the Directorate of Health of Damascus.

Sheikh explained that the last convoy, which included some medical supplies in addition to routine vaccinations, did not cover all the children needing their vaccines.

The last batch, confirms Mardini, had only succeeded in administering the vaccines to 20 percent of children under the age of two, and less than 55 percent total of children under five, implying that there are children who have gone even longer without proper immunizations.

"Infectious diseases do not recognize borders, and everyone - not just children - is at risk, whether in the besieged areas or in areas where the regime is present," Khawam says.

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