West Bank, UN: '36,000 displaced by Israeli settlement expansion'

"In Gaza, the epidemic risk is very high locally because the main determinants of transmission coincide: partial collapse of the health system, extensive damage to water and sewage networks, overcrowding, mass displacement, malnutrition and interruption of vaccination programmes. WHO and Unicef describe a context in which almost the entire population is exposed to public health risks related to water, sanitation and waste, with hospitals only partially functioning or not functioning and with epidemics or outbreaks of diarrhoea, hepatitis A, respiratory infections and circulating poliovirus derived from vaccine type 2', explains in a note Fabrizio Pregliasco, director of the school of specialisation in hygiene and preventive medicine La Statale University of Milan, on the health dangers in Gaza, in the entire Middle East and the possible global consequences for the world, including Italia, given the military escalation and the war that is still on a large scale.

"The most plausible threats are not all the same," he points out. "In Gaza today, the most immediate risk concerns oro-fecal diseases: acute diarrhoea, shigellosis, hepatitis A, and potentially cholera. Vaccine-preventable diseases: mainly polio and measles'. In the absence of vaccination coverage, there are also 'respiratory infections favoured by overcrowding and poor access to treatment. The most illustrative case is polio: the World Health Organisation has confirmed the circulation of the poliovirus in Gaza in 2024-2025, and a mass vaccination campaign was conducted in February 2025, reaching some 603,000 children under the age of 10, precisely because the risk of transmission persisted. This is an important signal: it denotes not only hygienic deterioration, but the return of an agent that had been eliminated locally for decades'.

"In the Middle East, the risk is not only in Gaza," Pregliasco continues. "The entire World Health Organisation's Eastern Mediterranean Region had the highest global burden of cholera and acute watery diarrhoea in 2025, with more than 230,000 cases reported in six countries," the doctor indicates. According to the WHO, 'the region accounts for about 55 per cent of the global burden of cholera and acute watery diarrhoea in 2025,' he adds.

"The risk from local epidemic to global epidemic cannot be excluded. The most balanced medical-scientific assessment is as follows: local epidemic risk in Gaza very high; regional Middle East risk high for some diseases; international case export risk present; immediate global pandemic risk generally low-moderate, but not zero. To turn into a pandemic, a pathogen must have several factors together: efficient inter-human transmission; sufficient international mobility; low immunity in the global population; ability to spread before being identified and contained,' Pregliasco concludes.