War & Health

Recently IRIN reported that the main office of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) was damaged in an Israeli airstrike. PMRS has photos of the damage on their website. The strike was in retaliation for more than 70 Palestinian rockets fired into Israel, one of which landed on the grounds of a local Israeli hospital. Neither the Palestinian nor Israeli attacks was officially targeting health facilities.

Why am I showing you this? Because damage to the health infrastructure is a primary cause of indirect morbidity and mortality during wartime. Despite myths to the contrary, dead bodies are not the catalysts of epidemics. Rather, it is the loss of health infrastructures (hospitals, clinics, etc…). When a region loses its health infrastructure it is unable to combat diseases endemic in the area, which quickly flare up. That is, in peacetime local health infrastructures keep local diseases in check through treatment and public health programs. When that infrastructure is destroyed, this check is removed and diseases spread rapidly.